‘What should be pristine white is littered with blue’ – Timo Lieber’s Arctic photography. Larsen ice crack continues to open up. Drone footage shows huge Antarctic ice crack. 11 Ways to See How Climate Change Is Imperiling the Arctic. Huge Antarctic iceberg poised to break away. Image copyright Adrian Luckman.
Ice loss spreads up Antarctic glaciers. Image copyright NASA The scale and pace of change now taking place in West Antarctica is captured in a new, long-term satellite record.
Scientists have combined nearly a quarter of a century of observations to show how the region's great glaciers are losing height by up to 7m per year. The Great Thaw: mapping Arctic sea ice thickness. As Geographical takes a look at the geopolitical state of the Arctic, Benjamin Hennig maps current ice thickness at the top of the world Sea ice can be described as frozen seawater floating on the surface of the polar oceans.
It does not include icebergs or ice shelves, as these are originating from glaciers, rather than sea water. A Rare Look at the Disappearing World of Antarctica's Whales. Ari Friedlaender kneels at the front of our inflatable boat as it bobs on the ocean.
He holds a rifle, with two metal harpoons protruding from its muzzle. His gaze is fixed a few feet ahead, where something big stirs just beneath the surface. “OK, put it in neutral,” he says to the driver. Our boat drifts closer. Why Antarctica Is So Hard on the Body—Even for Buzz Aldrin. Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men to walk on the moon, was safely evacuated from the South Pole, the U.S.
National Science Foundation said December 1. The agency, which runs the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station, transported the ailing 86-year-old Apollo 11 astronaut on a military flight to McMurdo Station on the coast and then on to New Zealand. Ice sheets & Climate. Over recent years, a large amount of attention has been paid to ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic, by both scientists and the media.
But why are ice sheets so important? Satellite images of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The divide between the two main Antarctic ice sheets is shown by the orange dashed line, and a further Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet exists on the finger of the continent. What is an ice sheet? Alaska's Inupiat elders create a video game to keep culture alive among their youth - Nov. 4, 2016.
Their stories, rooted in folklore and mythology, include tales of overcoming obstacles faced by the community, located in the northern most region of Alaska.
Winter is brutal and sunlight disappears from mid-November until the end of January. But as much as storytelling is integral to Inupiat culture, it risks becoming a dying art form. "Our younger generation is into other things," Ishmael Hope, 35, an Inupiat storyteller and writer, told CNNMoney. "They're on social media and into video games. Watch Arctic sea ice disappear. World's largest marine protected area declared in Antarctica. Image copyright John B.
Weller Delegates from 24 countries and the European Union have agreed that the Ross Sea in Antarctica will become the world's largest marine protected area (MPA). Some 1.57m sq km (600,000 sq miles) of the Southern Ocean will gain protection from commercial fishing for 35 years. These Maps Show the Epic Quest for a Northwest Passage. It had to be there: an ocean at the top of the world.
Future of Antarctic marine protected areas at risk. Antarctica's surrounding waters are home to some of the healthiest marine ecosystems on Earth and support thriving populations of krill, seabirds, fish and whales.
But efforts to establish a network of effective Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean are being hobbled by political infighting and demands that prioritize fishing interests over conservation by members of the international consortium tasked with conserving the region, Stanford scientists say. The findings, published Oct. 14 in Science, come as 24 countries and the European Union convene in Hobart, Australia, next week for the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), to resume negotiations of Southern Ocean MPAs.
"Our research shows that CCAMLR's positions for and against MPAs have become entrenched," said lead author Cassandra Brooks, a PhD candidate at Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Arctic crossing planned for ‘Boaty’ sub. The UK’s favourite new yellow submarine, Boaty McBoatface, is in training for a grand challenge. Scientists plan to send the long-range autonomous vehicle under the sea-ice of the Arctic - from one side of the ocean basin to the other. It is a journey of at least 2,500km - and while nuclear subs might routinely do it, the prospect is a daunting one for a battery-operated research vehicle.
The trip could happen in 2018 or 2019. “It represents one of the last great transects on Earth for an autonomous sub,” said Prof Russell Wynn, from the National Oceanography Centre, Boaty's UK base. “Previously, such subs have gone perhaps 150km (horizontally) under the ice and then come back out out again. Such a mission would give scientists rare insight into conditions that hold sway under the ice floes’ more persistent regions. Image copyright BAS/NERC Image copyright ESA. When Survival Depends on What's in Your Backpack. If you’re Lonnie Dupre, it’s about 60 pounds of survival essentials. “Trying to carry 19 days of supplies isn’t easy—it requires a hard look at everything you’re carrying,’’ says Dupre, the legendary Arctic explorer and mountaineer who in 2015 became the first climber to complete a January solo summit of Alaska’s Mount Denali. The Rolex Laureate left his Minnesota home last weekend for a five-week expedition to the Himalaya, where he’ll be part of Vertical Nepal, a six-person climbing team attempting the first ever ascent of 20,885-foot Langju in the remote Tsum Valley.
When he returns in mid-November, he’ll prepare for a first ever winter assault of Alaska’s Mount Hunter. Climbing light is essential for the 150-pound Dupre, who plans to max out a 60-pound backpack going up Mount Hunter, considered among North America's most difficult 14,000-foot peaks to scale. “Fuel is the number one priority. But Dupre, a descendant of French explorer Jaques Cartier, has also had his share of failures. Following Protocol: celebrating the Environmental Protocol.
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty The Antarctic Treaty, signed by the United Kingdom and 11 other countries in 1959, declared that ‘in the interest of all mankind, Antarctica shall continue for ever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.’ However, three decades later, a debate began brewing over the opportunities available for mining and other such extractive activities on the continent.
Instead, in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed on 4 October 1991 by 31 countries, which designated Antarctica as ‘a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science’. “The big issue is how long countries are going to be politically inclined to protect Antarctica” ‘The big issue,’ Rumble asserts, ‘is how long countries are going to be politically inclined to protect Antarctica. This is who's responsible for the Arctic. In August 2016 the 13-deck, 1,000-passenger Crystal Serenity set sail from Alaska to become the first cruise liner to attempt the Arctic’s fabled “north-west passage” that runs across the top of North America from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Until recently the passage was too clogged with ice for all but the sturdiest of ships. This voyage, only possible thanks to climate change, highlights just one impact of melting Arctic sea ice. As the ice melts further new opportunities will arise to fish, to drill for oil and gas, or to sail through the once-frozen ocean.
Inevitably, this activity will create competition with traditional Arctic communities, and risks severe damage to the environment. This is a vast, fragile region that plays a huge role in everything from climate cycles to marine food webs and reflecting sunlight back into space. Drones on ice. ANTARCTIC BLOG: Typical week at Bird Island Station - Blog post - British Antarctic Survey. 10 June, 2016 Bird Island Tim Morley, Zoological Field Assistant at Bird Island, shares a typical week at Bird Island Research Station as he prepares for midwinter…. With many of our species finishing breeding for the summer season winter has truly hit Bird Island, and the freezing temperatures and thick snow certainly emphasize the season we are now in!
But although we have concluded monitoring for many species there is still plenty of work to be getting on with and even more fun to have; here is what happens in a typical week for winter on BI. Monday. Ice Flows. Robert Swan: Let's save our last pristine continent. Icehotel. Arctic tourism. 'Healing' detected in Antarctic ozone hole. Image copyright SPL. The struggle in Iqaluit: north and south collide in Canada's Arctic capital. Huge penguin colony at risk from erupting volcano. One of the world’s biggest colonies of penguins is at risk from a volcano that has erupted on their small sub-Antarctic island in a British overseas territory. British scientists fear that Mt Curry’s eruption could have a serious impact on the 1.2m chinstrap penguins and nearly 200,000 macaroni penguins based on Zavodovski, one of the South Sandwich islands. Science Flights Target Melting Arctic Sea Ice. From the Arctic to the Mojave Desert, terrestrial and marine habitats are rapidly changing.
These changes impact animals that are adapted to specific ecological niches, sometimes displacing them or reducing their numbers. From their privileged vantage point, satellites are particularly well-suited to observe habitat transformation and help scientists forecast impacts on the distribution, abundance and migration of animals.