This is the 33rd issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the …
Atmospheric nitrogen oxides (NOx =NO+ NO2) play a pivotal role in the cycling of reactive nitrogen (ultimately deposited as nitrate) and the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. Combined measurements of nitrogen and oxygen stable isotope ratios of nitrate collected in the Arctic atmosphere were used to infer the origin and …
Despite cooler temperatures and ice-favoring conditions, long-term decline continues. This is a press release from NSIDC, which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Arctic sea ice extent during the 2008 melt season dropped to the second-lowest level since …
Preliminary data from two Arctic cruises suggest that rising temperatures are already causing substantial amounts of methane to be released from beneath the ocean floor. But catastrophic gas leaks, like those believed to have occurred 55 million years ago, are unlikely, scientists say.
Relative rates of temperature change between the troposphere and surface, and the mechanisms that produce these changes, have long been a contentious issue. Graversen et al.predicated upon the ERA-40 reanalysis, report polar tropospheric amplification of surface warming and attempt to explain this finding dynamically. (Brief Communications Arising)
Climate change is changing all the rules in the Arctic. The polar ice cap is smaller by some 700,000 square miles than it was in the two decades before 2000. The annual melting of northern ice this year may well surpass last year's - the furthest retreat of Arctic ice …
A small Arctic gull has set a record as the bird most contaminated by two banned industrial pollutants, scientists said on Thursday. Eggs of the ivory gull, which has a population of about 14,000 from Siberia to Canada, were found to have the highest known concentrations of PCBs, long used …
The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on Wednesday. Researchers announced late on Tuesday that the five ice shelves along Ellesmere Island in the …
Richard Morgan Toolik Field Station (Alaska): As Anne Giblin was lugging fourfoot tubes of Arctic lakebed mud from her inflatable raft to her nearby lab this summer, she said,
Arctic sea ice shrank to its second-lowest level ever, US scientists said on Wednesday, with particular melting in the Chukchi Sea, where polar bears were recently seen swimming far off the Alaskan coast. This year's Arctic ice melt could surpass the extraordinary 2007 record low in the coming weeks. Last …
Canada plans to boost its spending on mapping Arctic energy and mineral resources, in order to encourage development and defend Canadian sovereignty in the far North. The government will spend C$100 million (US$95 million) over five years, building on a plan earlier this year to spend C$34 million over two …
Paris: Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned on Sunday. And according to one commentary, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas …
The meltdown in the Arctic is speeding up and as a result the North Pole could be ice-free by 2013 instead of in 60 years' time as earlier predicted, scientists have warned. Their apprehensions are based on computer studies of satellite images that reveal that ice at North Pole melted …
Two chunks of ice together measuring almost 20 square kilometres have broken off an Arctic ice shelf, the biggest break-up of Arctic ice in three years, Canadian officials announced. Two floating islands of ice - measuring four to five square kilometres and 14 square kilometres - formed after the chunks …
A research vessel embedded in the thinning Arctic sea ice has a front-row seat for the cryospheric show of the century. Quirin Schiermeier reports from Darnley Bay, Canada.
Polar bears may not be the only Arctic wildlife threatened by global warming. Scientists have discovered that Arctic foxes also struggle as the ice disappears because they rely on the frozen seas to survive the bleak winters. Researchers tracked the movements of 14 young foxes as they faced their first …
A year after sending its first fully fledged expedition to the Arctic, India has established a research station in Svalbard, about 1,200 kilometres from the North Pole.
