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New! Canadian High Arctic Research Station coming to Cambridge Bay

25 August 2010. The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the new Canadian High Arctic Research Station will be located in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

"Through our Northern Strategy our Government is committed to realizing the full potential of Canada's North" said Prime Minister Harper. "By building this leading-edge research station, we are advancing Canada's knowledge of the Arctic's resources and climate while at the same time ensuring that Northern communities are prosperous, vibrant and secure."

The Canadian High Arctic Research Station will be a year-round, multidisciplinary facility exploring the cutting-edge of Arctic science and technology issues. The research at the station will help protect and understand the northern environment, contributing to the overall quality of life for Northerners and all Canadians.

The station is an integral part of Canada's four part Northern Strategy: to assert and defend Canada's sovereignty, to protect the unique and fragile arctic ecosystem, to develop a strong Northern economy and to encourage good governance and greater local control and opportunity.

See background information on the research station and feasibility study.

What Lives in the Sea?

As part of a Census effort, participating nations and regions generated new syntheses of marine biodiversity knowledge in their adjacent waters. Summaries of these findings are collected in The Public Library of Science's (PLoS) latest special collection, Marine Biodiversity and Biogeography — Regional Comparisons of Global Issues, released on Monday, August 2nd. The papers describe the physical, geological, chemical, and biological characteristics of each region, provide a brief history of research and species discovery, and give insight into the role of Census activities in promoting and synthesizing this information. These articles bring together teams of regional experts to identify strengths and gaps in taxonomic capacity and ecological knowledge, potential focal areas for biodiversity research, and threats to marine biodiversity that span fishing disturbance, habitat destruction, invasive species, pollutants, and climate change. They provide species inventories and document patterns of endemism within different taxa, and they identify biogeographic regions and taxonomic groups with the greatest potential to yield new discovery. Individually these articles provide insights that can reveal regional needs and promising directions for future research; collectively they establish a baseline for further global assessments and identify mechanisms for future international collaboration. The collection includes two overview articles: an introduction (O'Dor et al.) and a global synthesis (Costello et al.) of the national and regional articles that follow.

New Polar Journal Launched

The Polar Journal, a new journal focussing on polar social sciences and humanities, has been launched by Taylor and Francis. The first number of The Polar Journal will be published in June 2011. Initially it will be published twice a year. The Editors expect the journal to be of interest across the range of international scientific, science-policy, operational, diplomatic, legal and academic communities concerned with the Antarctic and Arctic.

Major International Global-Change Science Conference 2012 announced

The International Council for Science's (ICSU) global change programmes have announced that the UK will host a major global-change open science conference in 2012, 'Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions'. The conference aims to provide scientific input into the Earth Summit (Rio +20) also in 2012. The event, provisionally booked for 7-10 May 2012, will take place prior to the next UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, also scheduled for that year. Presenting the latest research findings, the London conference is anticipated to provide a solid scientific foundation for the summit.

Further details are available on the IGBP website.

Universality of Science in the Polar Regions

SCAR's parent body, the International Council for Science (ICSU) has released a statement on the Universality of Science in the Polar Regions. Building on the international collaborative spirit witnessed during the International Polar Year, and for the global population to benefit from the improved understanding of changes and influence of the polar regions that this spirit enables, ICSU calls on all parties conducting or influencing polar research to support the principle of Universality of Science.

View the full ICSU statement.

Call for Participation of Young Researchers in NRF Open Assembly

The Northern Research Forum (NRF), an Institute of the University of the Arctic (UArctic), is a venue for open dialogue to address issues and opportunities which face people living in the regions of the Circumpolar North. In order to do so, the NRF hosts a biennial Open Assembly where stakeholders, including researchers, educators, politicians, business leaders, civil servants, community leaders, NGO representatives, and resource users and managers come together and address the issues that are in focus.

The 6th NRF Open Assembly will be held in Oslo and Kirkenes, Norway on the 24th – 27th of October this year. The NRF is currently searching for Young Researchers to participate at the Assembly, where the NRF gives out travel grants for participation. Further information is available from the Assembly website.

Arctic Sea Ice stays low

The figure below is from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center:

Graph showing the average monthly Arctic sea ice extent, January 1979 to 2010

It shows that despite cool temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean in January, Arctic sea ice extent continued to track below normal. By the end of January, ice extent dropped below the extent observed in January 2007. Ice extent was unusually low in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, the one major area of the Arctic where temperatures remained warmer than normal. Arctic sea ice extent averaged for January 2010 was 13.78 million square kilometers (5.32 million square miles). This was 1.08 million square kilometers (417,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for January, but 180,000 square kilometers (69,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in January 2006.

Ice extent remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea, and in Davis Strait. The only region with above-average ice extent was on the Pacific side of the Bering Sea. While Arctic sea ice extent has declined in all seasons, the downward trends in winter ice extent are much smaller than in summer. Polar darkness and low temperatures mean that the ice generally refreezes to about the same boundaries each winter. Ice extent averaged for January 2010 was the fourth lowest for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for January is now 3.2% per decade.

WCRP Open Science Conference Announced

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) has announced that its Open Science Conference, entitled Climate Research in Service to Society, will take place in Denver, Colorado, USA from 24-28 October 2011. More information is available in the First Announcement, or by visiting the Conference website.

Global temperatures stay warm despite cold north temperate winter

The annual compilation of temperatures by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science shows that 2009 was the second warmest year on record despite the cold temperatures in December across North America, western Europe and Siberia. See Jim Hansen's post on the Columbia University website.

Arctic Oscillation Explains Cold European and North American Winter of 2009-10

The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) carries an elegant explanation of why the European and North American winter has been so severe through December 2009 into January 2010 (see their Arctic Sea Ice News). The current phase of the Arctic Oscillation has very low pressures over the Arctic, making it unusually warm there (up to 7°C warmer than usual over Baffin Bay). In this negative phase of the oscillation, higher pressures and colder temperatures are typically found over the mid latitudes, as is the case now. Given the Arctic warming, the Arctic sea ice for the period remains well below the average for the 1979-2000 period and not a lot different from 2007. The December figures of ice extent are right on the line of a 3.3% decline in area per year for December since 1978. For those who are Euro-centric or North America-centric, it is worth bearing in mind that while we freeze, much of the rest of the world continues to show warming. What we are experiencing is weather - not climate.

2009

European Polar Board seeks a new Head

The European Polar Board unit at the European Science Foundation is looking for a new Head of Unit to support the Board's overall mission, which is to facilitate cooperation and coordination between directors and managers of national funded Polar Programmes in order to identify and prioritise issues of common European interest and add strategic value to the efforts of national programmes. The European Polar Board (EPB), a non-governmental body under the auspices of the European Science Foundation, is the ESF's expert committee on Science Policy in the Polar Regions, and acts as a voice and facilitator of cooperation between European National Funding Agencies, National Polar Institutes and research organizations. The EPB is concerned with major strategic priorities in the Arctic and Antarctic and has members from national operators and research institutes in 19 countries including pre-Accession countries to the EU and States outside the EU such as Russia.

The EPB hope to have the new head of the unit in place by January 2010 and the appointee will be based in Strasbourg. Further information on the ESF, EPB and detailed particulars regarding the post of Head can be found on the ESF website.

Global surface temperature predictions based on observations

Numerical models find it difficult to produce reliable predictions of Earth's surface temperature for the near future. To improve temperature forecasts, Lean and Rind (Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2009GL038932, 2009) decomposed the observed temperature change in recent years into components due to anthropogenic causes and due to natural causes. Their study explains why 1998 was especially warm and why surface temperatures have not increased since. 1998 was influenced by a super El Niño, and since 2000, declining solar activity and La Niña cooling have cancelled the warming due to increased greenhouses gases, keeping temperatures more or less constant (though still much warmer than in the 1960s). The authors used their decomposition to predict that from 2009-2014 global temperature will increase by about 0.15°C as both anthropogenic forcing and solar irradiance increase. From 2014-2019 decreasing solar irradiance (decline of the next sunspot cycle) will likely cancel much anthropogenic warming, so leading to only slight temperature increases during those years. Because these projections are based on observations of how ocean and solar influences have changed global temperatures in the recent past the authors believe their forecasts are the most reliable available. Note that the trend underlying these various changes is upward due to anthropogenic forcing (modified from EOS, v.90 (no.37), September 2009 p.327].

New Website for the International Permafrost Association

A new website has been launched for the International Permafrost Association. The website is a joint venture with the Arctic Portal and features a wide range of new features through user membership, including access to permafrost data, membership on the new Permalist mailing list, access to picture galleries, IPA documents, and other resources. It is regularly updated with news from the International Permafrost Association and members' countries and will be progressively enhanced to offer a wide range of web 2.0 features to its users. Permalist is a new activity of the IPA and is an email-based, unmoderated mailing list focused on permafrost activities, resources, event announcements, etc. It is accessible to all with an interest in permafrost and periglacial activities. It is coupled to user membership on the website. Only website users can post to the mailing list. Permalist is generously hosted by the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) in Fairbanks, Alaska. The International Permafrost Association (IPA), founded in 1983, fosters the dissemination of knowledge concerning permafrost and promotes cooperation among persons and national or international organizations engaged in scientific investigation and engineering work on permafrost. SCAR and IASC are partners of the IPA.

IPY October Polar Week (Oct 5-9)

October Polar Week (October 5-9th) is fast approaching and the IPY International Project Office is currently developing an activity flyer for release and soliciting international partnerships with schools, youth, museums, science centres and community clubs to host IPY activities during the week. The theme for this Polar Week is What Happens at the Poles Affects Us All and has four main goals:

Please keep your eye on the IPO website for details as they develop. If you have any events planned during October Polar Week and would like to connect to the international IPY community, please contact Karen Edwards directly at karen.edwards@ualberta.ca

Host a PolarTREC Teacher

PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is currently accepting applications from researchers at US institutions for the fourth year of teacher research experiences. Researchers are invited to submit an application to host a PolarTREC teacher in the 2010 arctic and/or the 2010-2011 Antarctic field seasons (the application deadline is 20 September). Teachers are also invited to apply for places on the programme, with an application deadline of 5 October. More information and application forms are available from the PolarTREC website.

PolarTREC, a program of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US (ARCUS), is a project in which K-12 teachers participate in polar research, working closely with scientists as a pathway to improving science education. The program integrates research and education to produce a legacy of long-term teacher-researcher collaborations, improved teacher content knowledge and instructional practices, and broad public interest and engagement in polar science. PolarTREC projects focus on a wide variety of research activities occurring in both the Arctic and Antarctic, providing an outstanding opportunity for researchers to share their passion for polar science through topics that naturally engage students and the wider public.

Through PolarTREC, teachers spend two to six weeks in the Arctic or Antarctic, working closely with researchers in the field as an integral part of the science team. PolarTREC teachers and researchers are matched based on similar science interests; selected researchers will have the opportunity to interview top applicants and make final selections. Teachers participate in an orientation and are trained extensively to meet the program requirements prior to the field season. While in the field, teachers and researchers communicate extensively with their colleagues, communities, and students of all ages across the globe, using a variety of tools including online journals, forums, podcasts, and interactive webinars from the field.

For further information, please contact the PolarTREC staff at info@polartrec.com or visit the PolarTREC website.

Polar Bears Will Decline Along with Arctic Ice

Much to the chagrin of sceptics, it would appear from careful analyses of what polar bear populations are actually doing, rather than what the media thinks they are doing, that there is a clear relationship between declining Arctic sea ice and declining polar bear populations. The hard data, the models and the projections are carefully analysed in the light of what sceptics have to say, in a comprehensive paper led by the US Geological Survey. The implication is clear: as the Arctic continues to warm, and as sea ice continues to decline over the decades, polar bears will lose habitat and will not be able to make up for it by foraging inland. These beasts are under threat.

Read the full paper on the future of polar bears.

Sunspots, Oceanic Oscillations and Global Warming

The fact that the world cooled slightly in 2008 appears related to three phenomena: (i) the Pacific Decadal Oscillation entered a cool phase, and its cooling of the North Pacific has had an effect on the temperatures of east Asia and western North America and hence on global temperature; (ii) the Pacific has recently experienced an extended La Niña (cool) phase, and La Niña events, like El Niño (warm) events have an impact on global temperature; and (iii) we are at a low in the 11-year sunspot cycle; fewer sunspots means a very slightly cooler sun. These three things together conspired to keep 2008 cooler than average. The prognosis for the future is that we are now entering an El Nino event, and the sunspot cycle should soon turn around to reach a maximum somewhere around 2013 (see NASA's Solar Cycle Prediction). Next year is likely to be a warm one.

UK Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise Scoping Study

The executive summary of the Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise scoping study (1: Greenland Activities) is now available on the NERC website. The scoping study was commissioned in September 2008 to put forward a series of options for a research programme that will improve understanding of the stability of ice sheets and the projections of future melting and related sea level rise. The focus of the scoping study is the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It directly relates to planning delivery of the NERC strategy, in particular the Earth System Science (ESS), Climate System (CS) and Natural Hazards (NH) themes.

Carbon dioxide emissions cause ocean acidification - Inter-Academy Panel statement on Ocean Acidification

The attached statement has been endorsed by 70 science academies from around the world and will be formally launched during the UNFCCC Bonn talks in early June 2009. The UK's Royal Society notes:- "The timing of this statement is deliberate. The acidification of the world's oceans, like climate change, is a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are the only solution, and yet ocean acidification is not yet on the agenda for the UNFCCC Bonn or Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. The objective of this statement is therefore to raise the profile of ocean acidification within the context of the UNFCCC talks, and to encourage climate negotiators to consider the additional impacts of ocean acidification when discussing global emission reduction targets.

The statement emphasises;

The statement concludes that deep and rapid reductions of global CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2050 and much more thereafter are needed, and calls on world leaders to:

Presentations Now Available Online: A Celebration of International Polar Year 2007-2008

The US National Academy of Sciences, together with the National Science Foundation, held a celebration on 6 April 2009 to recognize the achievements of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY). The meeting included highlights of IPY projects, including such topics as climate change, sea ice stability, Antarctic ecosystems, and people in the Arctic. Presentation videos detailing various aspects of IPY research are available on the National Science Foundation website.

The posted presentations include:

More greenhouse gas methane emerging from warming Arctic permafrost

The Alfred Wegener Institute reports (30 March 2009) that higher temperatures in Arctic permafrost soils alter the community of methane-producing microorganisms and lead to an increased emission of methane. Results come from work in the Laptev Sea, a shallow shelf sea close to the coast of Siberia. Caused by overflooding with relatively warm sea water, this so-called 'submarine permafrost' is about 10º C warmer than the permafrost on land.

Permafrost covers about 25% of the earth's land area and stores huge amounts of organic carbon. In the absence of oxygen, the climate relevant trace gas methane is generated by decomposition of organic carbon. Special microorganisms (methanogenic archaea) are responsible for the generation of methane. The microorganisms generate methane even in deeply frozen permafrost layers of about -7° C. If these temperatures are experimentally increased by some degrees, the organisms' metabolic activity increases and thus also the production of methane in permafrost. Submarine permafrost has developed in a former landmass which was flooded due to the raised main sea level after the last glacial. It is therefore originally a terrestrial permafrost deposit. In contrast to current terrestrial permafrost with a mean temperature of -12° C, submarine permafrost has already been warmed to a temperature of -2° C. By comparing the two communities of microorganisms generating methane in both permafrost regions, AWI could show that the composition of methane-producing microorganisms in submarine permafrost is different from that in terrestrial permafrost, and adapted to the warmer conditions.

The data suggest that the atmospheric warming we observe leads to an increased emission of the climate relevant trace gas methane in earth's vast permafrost regions today.

Arctic Dipole is the Major Driver for Arctic Sea Ice Minima

New research is now available on the causes of the arctic summer sea ice minimum in 2007 and other previous minima. Dr Jia Wang of NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and his colleagues recently published an article in Geophysical Research Letters to explain that the Arctic Dipole (DA) is the major driver for the Arctic sea ice minima.

The previous record lows of arctic summer sea ice extent are found to be triggered by the arctic atmospheric Dipole Anomaly (DA) pattern. This local, second-leading mode of sea-level pressure anomaly in the Arctic produced a strong meridional wind anomaly that drove more sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean from the western to the eastern Arctic into the northern Atlantic during the summers of 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2007. In the 2007 summer, the DA also enhanced anomalous oceanic heat flux into the Arctic Ocean via Bering Strait, which accelerated bottom and lateral melting of sea ice and amplified the ice-albedo feedback. A coupled ice-ocean model was used to confirm the historical record lows of summer sea ice extent.

For more information, see the full paper.

Polar Oceans Day - March 2009

Every three months, IPY celebrates International Polar Days, focusing on a different aspect of polar research. Previous Polar Days have focused on Sea Ice, Ice Sheets, Changing Earth, Land & Life, People and Research Above the Polar Regions. In March 2009, there will be a focus on Polar Oceans. Events will start on the 18th March with activities continuing throughout that week until the 26th March. A list of activities is available from the IPY website.

We want to make this day as multilingual as we can and are keen to encourage as many local activities as possible that range from inspiring primary school classes to providing higher-level information about IPY research and the process of science for higher-level students, educators and media.

In conjunction with this, there will be several live events connecting researchers in the field with students around the world, activity and ocean summary flyers in many languages, a virtual balloon launch, and profiles of IPY research and researchers. If you would like to contribute, or if you have any links and resources or educational activities you think would be suitable for this day, please contact Nicola Munro (ipy1@bas.ac.uk).

Antarctic and Arctic Essay Competition

The Association of Early Career Scientists (APECS), together with the organisers of the Antarctic Treaty Summit, are asking all young researchers to share their thoughts and opinions in form of an essay focusing on how to better integrate science and policy, and on the needs for new policy dealing with current issues in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic. Winners will receive a travel fellowship to represent the new generation of polar researchers at the Antarctic Treaty Summit, which will be held in Washington, DC from 30 November to 3 December, 2009. The deadline for submissions is 15 March 2009. For more information, please visit the essay competition page of the APECS website.

Download the application form.

International Polar Day focusing on Oceans

The next International Polar Day will focus on Oceans, with activities occurring around the world between March 18th and 25th. During that period, the IPY Office is hoping to catalyse many international, multi-lingual activities around the world. The Office is looking for scientists with expertise related to polar oceans who could help write, or check, content for the webpages, check educational activities, talk about their research during 'live events', or be profiled in our Meet the Scientist section. Please pass this information on to any colleagues, students, or mentors who might be interested in polar science outreach. More details about Polar Days can be found on the IPY Polar Days web page or by downloading the invitation letter from the IPY Office.

Record 2007 Greenland Ice Sheet Melt

The latest snow modelling data, reported in the Journal EOS (vol. 90, No. 2, 13 Jan 2009), show that the melt extent in 2007 was 915,000 sq km, 20% more than the average for 1995-2006. Runoff was 35% greater than the 1995-2006 average. These trends are increases on previous years, suggesting a speeding up in the underlying processes. At the time of writing the trend for 2008 seemed to be continuing that for 2007.

Global temperature - 2008 cool, but still 7th warmest since 1900

The analysis of global temperature trends by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS) is now out, and shows that even though we had record sea ice melt in the Arctic, 2008 was cooler than 2007. Nevertheless it was still one of the top 10 warmest years of recent times. The cause of the cooling appears to be persistence of a cold La Niña event in the Pacific, combined with the fact that we are now at the nadir between two sunspot cycles, and that solar output is fractionally lower than at the last such nadir. There are signs that the La Niña may soon be replaced by an El Niño, and, if the sunspot cycles continue as they have in recent times, the number of sunspots (hence solar energy emitted) should soon rise. A record warm year appears to be likely in the next couple of years.

Read the full article.