Air, ice, water and land blend to create a unified ecosystem in the Arctic. There is a constantly shifting balance between the elements that fight for dominance throughout the year....
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Inuit guide Sheatie Tagak and other local guides share with me that their hunting range is shrinking. The sea ice forms up later each year and does not extend as far....
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In 1931, famed Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris painted a series of canvases of Arctic landscapes that captivated the attention of Canadians. Landscape Photography of the time was either...
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Have you ever wondered what our world would look like without ice? The video assembled by Business Insider is based on the 2013 National Geographic story, “What the World Would Look Like if...
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The extent of the cover of sea ice at both poles keeps reaching new records. According to NASA, the Arctic sea ice reached a record low wintertime extent on March 7, 2017. It was the same situation on the other side of the world when Antarctic sea ice levels were documented to reach its lowest extent recorded since satellites began to measure these parameters in 1979. What is even more troubling is that what remains is even thinner than before. Sea ice plays many roles in the health of our planet. When sea ice melts, nutrients are released into the…
“New Orleans, the Netherlands—everybody understands putting in barriers, perimeter levees, pumps. Very few people understand: What do you do when the water’s coming up through the ground? This excellent article in the New Yorker, describes how far we need to go to make Americans aware of the effects of climate change and sea level rise. Fort Lauderdale is growing exponentially faster than almost any other American city and yet it’s days are clearly numbered. Florida Governor Rick Scott will not allow State employees to speak about climate change, instead referring to it as “nuisance flooding.” But the message is clear: in…
Sea ice is declining in the Arctic, but that loss is not directly responsible for rising sea level. Think about a cold drink filled with ice cubes. When the cubes...
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Immense ‘dome’ of fresh water bulging atop Arctic Ocean off Alaska Doug O’Harra CPOM scientists have discovered that the freshwater stored in the western Arctic Ocean has increased by 8000 km3 between the mid 1990s and 2010. Credit: UCL – ESA – PVL Enough extra fresh water to just about fill lakes Michigan and Huron to the brim has collected in the top layers of the Arctic Ocean northeast of Alaska during the past decade, according to new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Driven largely by strong winds and an immense circular current, some 8,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water have…
How Climate Change Affects Water in the Arctic Right now the permafrost is changing fast in the Arctic and will likely shrink more than 10% in the next 20 years with the permafrost borders shifting up to 200 km northward. Where permafrost is present, the ground is frozen up to 500 m deep with only the top meter thawing in summer. That means that lakes, rivers and wetlands in the Arctic do not generally connect with the groundwater. Surface water is abundant in summer offering breeding grounds for fish, birds and mammals. That paradigm is changing fast. When surface water…
National Action Plan is Needed As I packed my bags to depart for Canada’s North, I was confronted with the front page of Huffington Post. A full screen banner read “Canada is Melting.” In his article, Michael Bolen, reviews a 259 page report form the federal government that describes how Canada is warming at roughly the global average over the last half century. With no national plan for addressing climate change, he wonders how long we can keep our heads in the sand. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said recently: “No matter what they say, no country is going to take actions…