Arctic – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Arctic sea ice loss linked to personal CO2 emissions

By Guest PostNovember 15, 2016EnvironmentArctic, dirk notz, global warming, julienne stroeve, loss, personal co2 emissions, sea ice, sea ice disappears, summer sea ice

Three square metres of Arctic summer sea ice disappears for every tonne of carbon dioxide a person emits, wherever they are on the planet, according to new UCL research. (more…)

NASA: Alaska Shows No Signs of Rising Arctic Methane

By Guest PostNovember 28, 2014Environmentalaska, antibiotikaresistenzen in eis, Arctic, atmosphere, cambridge research lab, carbon dioxide, daniel gattinger, eisprobe, global temperatures, NASA, schmierfett havarie, stellar streams, stubaier gletscher

Despite large temperature increases in Alaska in recent decades, a new analysis of NASA airborne data finds that methane is not being released from Alaskan soils into the atmosphere at unusually high rates, as recent modeling and experimental studies have suggested. The new result shows that the changes in this part of the Arctic have not yet had enough impact to affect the global methane budget. (more…)

Whales, ships more common through Bering Strait

By Guest PostMarch 21, 2014Environment, Natureamerican coast, Arctic, arctic beluga, bering sea, bering strait, chukchi sea, Environment, gas exploration, habitat, honolulu, humpback, humpback whale, janet clarke, kate stafford, killer whales, leidos inc, marine mammals, noise pollution, North America, oil, russia, ships, sub arctic whales, sue moore, underwater microphones, university of washington, whales

The Arctic is home to a growing number of whales and ships, and to populations of sub-Arctic whales that are expanding their territory into newly ice-free Arctic waters. (more…)

NASA: Warm Rivers Play Role in Arctic Sea Ice Melt

By Guest PostMarch 8, 2014ScienceArctic, arctic ocean, Arctic sea ice, beaufort sea, consumption rate, dorothy hall, drainage basins, energy, factor, ignatius rigor, mackenzie river, NASA, northern hemisphere, reflective sea ice, sea ice melt, son nghiem, united states, warm rivers, watersheds

The heat from warm river waters draining into the Arctic Ocean is contributing to the melting of Arctic sea ice each summer, a new NASA study finds.

A research team led by Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used satellite data to measure the surface temperature of the waters discharging from a Canadian river into the icy Beaufort Sea during the summer of 2012. They observed a sudden influx of warm river waters into the sea that rapidly warmed the surface layers of the ocean, enhancing the melting of sea ice. A paper describing the study is now published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. (more…)

Zoo Polar Bear Sports High-Tech Neckwear for Conservation

By Guest PostAugust 1, 2013Natureaccelerometer, amy cutting, anthony pagano, Arctic, arctic basin, climate change mystery, future for wildlife, gopro camera, high tech neckwear, michael durham, polar bear behavior, smart phones, tasul, tasul cam, techcessory, U.S. Geological Survey, wildlife managers, zoo polar bear

Study will help biologists track wild polar bears’ response to climate change

PORTLAND, Ore. — Tasul, an Oregon Zoo polar bear, recently landed her first white-collar job: research assistant for the U.S. Geological Survey. Her assignment: wearing a high-tech collar to help solve a climate change mystery.

“Scientists and wildlife managers need to understand how polar bears are responding as sea ice retreats,” said Amy Cutting, Oregon Zoo curator. “But polar bears are notoriously difficult to study in the wild. Direct behavioral observations are nearly impossible.”

Enter Tasul. (more…)

Coastal Antarctic Permafrost Melting Faster Than Expected

By Guest PostJuly 25, 2013Environmentandrew fountain, antarctic peninsula, Arctic, arctic like slump, austin, boston university, brown university, coastal antarctic, coastal arctic, david marchant, dry valleys contain, frozen water, garwood valley, ground ice, ice free islands, institute for geophysics, jaclyn watters, james dickson, james head, joseph levy, layers of sediment, lidar, marianne okal, mass, mcmurdo dry valleys, permafrost melting, phenomenon, present geologic epoch, retrogressive thaw slumps, ross sea, scientific reports, section of antarctica, tibet, university of texas, warming antarctic continent, weather station data

AUSTIN, Texas — For the first time, scientists have documented an acceleration in the melt rate of permafrost, or ground ice, in a section of Antarctica where the ice had been considered stable. The melt rates are comparable with the Arctic, where accelerated melting of permafrost has become a regularly recurring phenomenon, and the change could offer a preview of melting permafrost in other parts of a warming Antarctic continent.

Tracking data from Garwood Valley in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Antarctica, Joseph Levy, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, shows that melt rates accelerated consistently from 2001 to 2012, rising to about 10 times the valley’s historical average for the present geologic epoch, as documented in the July 24 edition of Scientific Reports. (more…)

Global Warming will Open Unexpected New Shipping Routes in Arctic, UCLA Researchers Find

By Guest PostMarch 11, 2013EnvironmentArctic, arctic lakes, arctic ocean, asia, atlantic ocean, coast of russia, eastern canada, global temperature, global warming, icebreakers, independent climate forecasts, Japan, laurence c smith, new shipping routes, north pole, northern sea route, pacific, panama canal, polar class 6, projected shipping lanes, rotterdam, scott r stephenson, sea ice, shipping potential, suez, the netherlands, trans arctic, ucla researchers, vessels, yokohama

Shipping lanes through the Arctic Ocean won’t put the Suez and Panama canals out of business anytime soon, but global warming will make these frigid routes much more accessible than ever imagined by melting an unprecedented amount of sea ice during the late summer, new UCLA research shows.

“The development is both exciting from an economic development point of view and worrisome in terms of safety, both for the Arctic environment and for the ships themselves,” said lead researcher Laurence C. Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA. (more…)

March of the Pathogens: Parasite Metabolism Can Foretell Disease Ranges under Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 27, 2013Environment, Scienceandrew dobson, Arctic, arctic climate, attitude, bacteria, body temperature, bryanne hoar, california santa barbara, climate change, cold blooded intermediate, disease causing parasite, disease ranges, earth grows warmer, ecology, emerging disease, environmental factors, environmental temperatures, equator, fundamental thermal niche, global warming, humans, infectious diseases, infectivity, life cycle, life cycle components, livestock, malaria, metabolic patterns, metabolic theory, microorganism, migrate, model, mortality, nematode, ostertagia gruehneri, parasite life cycle, parasite metabolism, pathogens, peter molnar, plasmodium, princeton university, range, reproduction, roundworm, ryan hechinger, sky is falling, susan kutz, temperatures, territory, university, university of calgary, viruses, wildlife, wooly bovine, worms

Knowing the temperatures that viruses, bacteria, worms and all other parasites need to grow and survive could help determine the future range of infectious diseases under climate change, according to new research.

Princeton University researchers developed a model that can identify the prospects for nearly any disease-causing parasite as the Earth grows warmer, even if little is known about the organism. Their method calculates how the projected temperature change for an area would alter the creature’s metabolism and life cycle, the researchers report in the journal Ecology Letters. (more…)

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