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Unmanned drones track Arctic seals
U. COLORADO (US) — Cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic are doing double duty by assessing declining sea ice and pinpointing seals that have hauled up on ice floes.The project is...
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Polar bears’ ice not so thin after all
U. WASHINGTON (US) — The fate of polar bear may not be as grim as previously thought.Polar bears were added to the threatened species list nearly three years ago as their icy habitat showed steady,...
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Algae spew mucus to alter sea ice
U. WASHINGTON-SEATTLE (US) — The discovery that sea-ice algae release mucus to create microchannels raises questions about the long-term effects on the ice and on animals up the food chain.Altering ice...
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Tundra fires may speed climate change
U. FLORIDA (US) — After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and new findings raise concerns the fires could accelerate the release of carbon into the atmosphere.In a...
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Polar sea ice: Down but not out
U. WASHINGTON (US) — Polar sea ice can recover from even the harshest period of climate-induced melting as long as the planet cools again, according to a new study.Researchers have kept an eye on the...
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Drop in sea ice to blame for snowy winters?
GEORGIA TECH (US) — There’s new evidence connecting melting ice in the Arctic and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere.The findings from a study led by researchers at the Georgia...
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Will Arctic shrink leave seal pups homeless?
U. WASHINGTON (US) — Shrinking sea ice in the Arctic could dramatically reduce areas where it’s suitable for ringed seals to reproduce, threatening their survival.The ringed seal, currently under...
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Arctic shift may mean summer washouts for UK
U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — The heavy rains the UK experienced this past summer could become a regular occurrence, according to a new study that links a change in summer Arctic wind patterns to global warming...
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With less ice, growing seasons shift in Arctic
BOSTON U. (US) — As snow and ice cover shrink in northern latitudes, researchers say temperatures and vegetation increasingly resemble those found farther south.The findings, published in the journal...
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Sunlight on snow reacts to clean Arctic air
PURDUE (US) — Rising surface temperatures in the Arctic could affect a unique chemical reaction that helps rid the air of pollutants, experts report.“We are racing to understand exactly what happens in...
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Thawing Arctic keeps its grip on carbon
UC SANTA BARBARA (US) — The Arctic has warmed up over the last twenty years, but researchers find that the amount of carbon trapped in the soil remains steady. “We expected that because of the...
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Permafrost microbe loves salty Arctic ‘veins’
MCGILL (CAN) — Scientists have discovered a bacterium in the Canadian High Arctic that thrives at -15º Celsius—temperatures nearly as cold as the surface of Mars. The temperature in the permafrost on...
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‘Heat dome’ melted Greenland ice sheet in 2012
U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Unusual changes in the jet stream caused the exceptional surface melt of the Greenland ice sheet in 2012, but it’s too early to tell if it was a rare event or a sign of significant...
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Climate and health pose big risks to Arctic natives
U. OREGON (US) — Native populations in far-northern climates face growing health risks, particularly in the face of a rapidly warming climate and efforts to extract natural resources from their...
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Arctic ‘tree rings’ show 650 years of sea ice change
Calcite crust growing among layers of Arctic seafloor algae offers a look at almost 650 years of annual change in sea ice cover and may help improve modeling for future climate change. “This is the...
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Team detects very high chlorine levels in Alaska air
Researchers have documented unexpectedly high levels of molecular chlorine in the air above Barrow, Alaska. “No one expected there to be this level of chlorine in Barrow or in polar regions,” says Greg...
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Why polar bears don’t need to hibernate
Brown and black bears hibernate during winter to conserve energy and stay warm. But the same isn’t true for polar bears. Only pregnant polar bears den up for the colder months. So how do the rest...
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Whales and ships fight for space in noisy Arctic
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. Three years of underwater...
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Did Tibet ‘train’ big animals for the Ice Age?
Researchers report that a newly discovered 3- to 5-million-year-old Tibetan fox from the Himalayan Mountains, Vulpes qiuzhudingi, is the likely ancestor of the living Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus). This...
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Why sea ice grows at one pole, but shrinks at the other
There have been dramatic, yet differing, changes in sea ice cover at the poles over the past 35 years, according to a new analysis of satellite images. “The late-summer Arctic sea ice coverage has...
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