In a setback to the animal we described as the “fuzzy face of climate change,” a federal court has determined that setting aside 187,157 square miles of Arctic coastline in Alaska as “critical” polar bear habitat under the Endangered Species Act was too ambitious. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had identified the area of coastline, offshore sea ice, and islands as prime real estate for the dens of pregnant polar bears. It was also, as these things happen, prime real estate for oil and gas development. And so we have another entry in the culture wars column. As Zac Unger explained ... Read More
Polar Conference Opens With Inspiring Prize
April 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Some rare good news for Arctic researchers and the region they study: an annual $1 million prize to be awarded to up to five research teams in Canada so they can move the knowledge they’ve produced into action. In announcing the Arctic Inspiration Prize at the International Polar Year conference in Montreal, founder Arnold Witzig explained that he and his partner Sima Sharifi were inspired by the concept “From Knowledge to Action.” That’s also the theme of the conference, which opened today and marks five years of research in the Arctic and Antarctic since the opening of the ... Read More
Measuring the Melting Arctic Sea Ice
July 4, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
While the world's eyes focus on the catastrophe in the Gulf, climatologists are tracking a decades-old cataclysm at the top of the world — dwindling Arctic sea ice. This year is projected to surpass 2007's summer sea ice minimum, when sailboats were seen navigating their way through large cracks in polar ice floes. "Where Arctic ice used to be 3- to 5-meters thick in most places, now it's tough to find ice that's over 3-meters thick," explained Ignatius Rigor, a climatologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "Most of the Arctic is covered by 2-year-old ice. It used to be ... Read More
Saving Fuel But Melting Ice Faster
August 7, 2009 • By • 2 Comments
For centuries people in the West believed, as the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz articulated in the 17th century, "Everything exquisite and admirable comes from the East Indies. Learned people have remarked that in the whole world there is no commerce comparable to that of China." Europeans therefore took to the seas to get there once the land route to the East known as the Silk Road became difficult to access in the 1400s. The restriction on trade to the east motivated Columbus to sail west in search of a new route. Once people realized that he had not reached the East, other mariners ... Read More
