(H. Hedenas, et al., 2011. Changes in tree growth..., Ambio 40: 672-82, via CO2Science, 9 May 2012) -- The authors write that "during the last 15 years, there has been an increasing focus on how climate change has and will affect the distribution and extent of ecosystems around the globe including alpine and Arctic areas (e.g., Callaghan et al., 2005)," and in this regard they report that "field studies and remote sensing have revealed a recent increase in altitude of the tree line (e.g., Kullman, 2002)," as well as "an extension and increased cover of mountain birch forest (Tommervik et al., 2009; Rundqvist et al., 2011)."

More specifically, they say that Tommervik et al. have determined that "tree biomass has doubled over a 43-year period, within an area of Finnmarksvidda, and Rundqvist et al., have observed an increased density and cover of mountain birch in the treeline over the last three decades, within an area near Abisko village."

Tagged: News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(University of Pittsburgh press release via e! Science News, 8 May 2012) -- Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have joined an international group of scientists to study past climate changes in the Arctic. Comprising geologists from Pitt's Department of Geology and Planetary Science, the team has analyzed sedimentary and geochemical records of water-level changes in Rantin Lake, located in the boreal forest of Canada's southeastern Yukon Territory.

The results were published online in the April issue of Journal of Paleolimnology as one of 18 articles dedicated to reconstructing Arctic lake sediments climate and environmental changes during the Holocene (about 12,000 years before present day). "During the last 10,000 years, there have been certain times in which rapid climate change events occurred," said David Pompeani, lead author and a Pitt PhD geology student. "By analyzing Rantin Lake, we've contributed a piece of the puzzle toward mapping the timing and magnitude of these prehistoric events throughout the Arctic."

Rantin Lake is part of a watershed containing a series of small lakes hydrologically connected through groundwater flow. The regional climate is subarctic and characterized by warm, wet summers and dry, cold winters. The lake is located at 60 degrees north in the Canadian Arctic, only 30 degrees away from the North Pole, where climate change is expected to be amplified.

Tagged: News, Research

(Jane George/Nunatsiaq News, 7 May 2012) -- At a time when many northerners say they’re tired of being researched by people from the South, a program has worked on developing home-grown northern researchers and policy-makers. Over the past two years, the Jane Glassco Arctic Fellowship Program, has helped about a dozen young northerners, aged 25 to 35, undertake and complete their own research projects.

“The program shows we have our own people in our own communities who can do research,” said the Jane Glassco Arctic Fellowship Program director (and former Nunavut MP) Nancy Karetak-Lindell, in a recent interview. The program, offered through the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation with support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, provided 14 northerners with two-year fellowships of $25,000. Fellowship applicants, who were not required to be university students or graduates, suggested their own projects.

“We didn’t want to tell them the areas that they wanted to work in,” Karetak-Lindell said. “I wanted to be surprised. I wanted them to tell us what they wanted to work on.”

The legacy of the fellowships will be the fellows’ ability “to create positive changes together for our people.” At the end of the IPY conference, Karetak-Lindell, in her closing remarks, also issued a challenge to the indigenous community: “to define priority areas we want to research, recruit our own people to conduct research, support our young people to pursue further education to become scientists, record our knowledge and use it to make our own people healthier, more self-sufficient and be recognized again as the rightful stewards of our land, animals and the environment.” The Jane Glassco fellows are a step in that direction, she said, so that “we, the people, have to matter. We want to be more important to researchers, our country and the world than the polar bear and the seal.” But to do that, “the onus is on us to be the future, to study the Arctic, and more sure this takes place,” Karetak-Lindell said in an interview.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Research

(NASA press release, 22 April 2012) -- The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth's climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Now a multi-institutional study by Eric Kort of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself.

Kort, a JPL postdoctoral scholar affiliated with the Keck Institute of Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, led the analysis while he was a student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. The study was conducted as part of the HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) airborne campaign, which flew a specially instrumented National Science Foundation (NSF)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Gulfstream V aircraft over the Pacific Ocean from nearly pole to pole, collecting atmospheric measurements from Earth's surface to an altitude of 8.7 miles (14 kilometers). The campaign, primarily funded by NSF with additional funding from NCAR, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was designed to improve our understanding of where greenhouse gases are originating and being stored in the Earth system.

During five HIPPO flights over the Arctic from 2009 to 2010, Kort's team observed increased methane levels while flying at low altitudes over the remote Arctic Ocean, north of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The methane level was about one-half percent larger than normal background levels. But where was the methane coming from? The team detected no carbon monoxide in the atmosphere that would point to possible contributions from human combustion activities. In addition, based on the time of year, location and nature of the emissions, it was extremely unlikely the methane was coming from high-latitude wetlands or geologic reservoirs. By comparing locations of the enhanced methane levels with airborne measurements of carbon monoxide, water vapor and ozone, they pinpointed a source: the ocean surface, through cracks in Arctic sea ice and areas of partial sea ice cover. The cracks expose open Arctic seawater, allowing the ocean to interact with the air, and methane in the surface waters to escape into the atmosphere. The team detected no enhanced methane levels when flying over areas of solid ice.

Tagged: Arctic, History, Polar research: Reports and findings

(Renee Schoof/Anchorage Daily News, 4 May 2012) -- WASHINGTON -- Will the world be tapping methane hydrates deep in the permafrost and off the edges of continents decades from now? Part of the answer will rest with research in Alaska.

A day after the Department of Energy announced the results of a test at Prudhoe Bay that resulted in a steady flow of natural gas, researchers stressed that this was among many tests to come. The test was the first use of carbon dioxide to extract natural gas. At 30 days, it was also the longest test of methane hydrate extraction. "There's much more field work that would need to be done. This is the very first attempt to understand the scientific processes and the behavior of these reservoirs," Ray Boswell, the technology manager for gas hydrates at the Energy Department's National Energy Technology Lab, said Thursday.

The recent test focused on just one approach, what industry calls the "huff and puff." The investigators injected nitrogen and carbon dioxide and showed that this mixture could promote the production of natural gas. Another approach is based primarily on reducing pressure. The research so far suggests that this method would be the most promising way to get a commercially viable flow of natural gas, Boswell said.

Tagged: News

(NSF press release, 4 May 2012) -- Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland's contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century could be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible. The finding comes from a paper funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA and published in today's journal Science. While the study indicates that a melting Greenland's contributions to rising sea levels could be less than expected, researchers concede that more work needs to be done before any definitive trend can be identified. Studies like this one are designed to examine more closely and in greater detail what is actually happening with the ice sheets, often using newer and more precise tools and thereby better defining the parameters that scientists use to make predictions, such as the upper limits of sea-level rise.

"This study provides more evidence that the rate at which these glaciers can dump ice into the ocean is indeed limited," said Ian Howat, assistant professor of Earth sciences and member of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, a co-author on the paper. "What remains to be seen is how long the acceleration will continue--but it appears that our worst-case scenarios aren't likely." The fate of the Earth's ice sheets and their potential contributions to sea-level rise as the globe warms are among the major scientific uncertainties cited in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is in part because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have historically been, and in large measure continue to be, relatively sparsely monitored, as compared to other parts of the globe. The faster the glaciers move, the more ice and melt water they release into the ocean. ...

"This study is a great example of the power of high-resolution data sets in both space and time, and the importance of looking carefully at as much data as possible in helping make the best predictions we can of future changes", said Henrietta Edmonds, program director for Arctic Natural Sciences in NSF's Office of Polar Programs. The scientists saw no clear indication in the new research that the glaciers will stop gaining speed during the rest of the century, and so by 2100 they could reach or exceed the scenario in which they contribute four inches to sea level rise.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(American Association for the Advancement of Science press release via EurekAlert!, 26 April 2012) -- An analysis of 5,000-year-old DNA taken from the Stone Age remains of four humans excavated in Sweden is helping researchers understand how agriculture spread throughout Europe long ago. According to Pontus Skoglund from Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues, the practice of farming appears to have moved with migrants from southern to northern Europe. Agricultural know-how wasn't the only thing that early European farmers introduced to the region. Based on their genetic data, Skoglund and the researchers say that Europe's first farmers eventually mixed their genes with the hunter-gatherers who lived there—a relationship that set the stage for today's modern European genome.

"We analyzed genetic data from two different cultures—one of hunter-gatherers and one of farmers—that existed around the same time, less than 400 kilometers (249 miles) away from each other," said Skoglund. "After comparing our data to modern human populations in Europe, we found that the Stone Age hunter-gatherers were outside the genetic variation of modern populations but most similar to Finnish individuals, and that the farmer we analyzed closely matched Mediterranean populations." These findings likely have something to do with the expansion of farming across Europe, according to the researchers. "When you put these findings in archaeological context, a picture begins to emerge of Stone Age farmers migrating from south to north across Europe," said Skoglund. "And the result of this migration, 5,000 years later, looks like a mixture of these two groups in the modern population." The researchers report their data in the 27 April issue of the journal Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit international science society.

Most experts agree that the agricultural way of life originated about 11,000 years ago in the Near East before it reached the European continent some 5,000 years later. But this new study should help scientists understand the impact of that agricultural revolution on human diversity. Skoglund and his colleagues performed their analysis with the ancient remains of three hunter-gatherers who were associated with the Pitted Ware Culture and excavated from the island of Gotland, Sweden, along with those of a farmer, who was associated with the Funnel Beaker Culture and excavated from Gökhem parish, Sweden. "We know that the hunter-gatherer remains were buried in flat-bed grave sites, in stark contrast to the megalithic sites that the farmers built," said Mattias Jakobsson, a senior author of the Science report, also from Uppsala University. "The farmer we analyzed was buried under such a megalith, and that's just one difference that helps distinguish the two cultures."

Ancient hunter-gatherers had a distinct genetic signature that was similar to that of today's northern Europeans, while the farmer's genetic signature closely resembles that of southern Europeans, according to the researchers. Interestingly, these ancient genomes don't share many similarities with modern-day Swedes, despite their discovery and excavations in Sweden. "The fact that the hunter-gatherers are most similar to Finns, Orcadians and other extreme-northern populations suggests that they were indeed the last major part of the Mesolithic meta-population that populated large parts of Europe before the early farmers appeared," said Anders Götherström of Uppsala University, who is another senior author of the Science report. "And the fact that the farmer is most similar to southeastern Europeans makes sense too, as that is from where the spread of agriculture north and eastward started." "The results suggest that agriculture spread across Europe in concert with a migration of people," added Skoglund. "If farming had spread solely as a cultural process, we would not expect to see a farmer in the north with such genetic affinity to southern populations."

Tagged: History, News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(Hannah Heimbuch/Dutch Harbor Fisherman, 13 April 2012) -- The fifth and largest ever Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference descended on Dillingham last month, bringing a host of experts and members of the curious public together to discuss Alaska's most pressing science issues.

"Energy efficiency, renewable energy, and food security were reoccurring themes at the conference," said Chet Chambers, who led a session on Sustainable Energy Programs and Projects at UAF Bristol Bay Campus. "We were very lucky to have Rich Seifert as our keynote speaker and as a presenter in a breakout session," Chambers said. Seifert is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and an expert on renewable energy and homebuilding in cold climates. "The Green Building session was jam packed, standing room only and featured several big names in energy efficient construction/green building." Those names included Seifert, as well as Tom Marsik and Lyle Axelarris. "All (of them) spoke about innovative residential projects in Alaska that focus on minimizing fossil fuel usage," Chambers said.

University of Washington Fisheries Professor and WAISC presenter Daniel Schindler called this year's conference the best he's been to in a long time. "The wide diversity of topics, ranging from the biology of whales, to links between climate change and human health, to insights from traditional ecological knowledge, was truly remarkable," Schindler said. "Equally impressive was the composition of the speakers and audience. It is rare to see such broad cross-section of people at a science conference. High school students, resource managers, politicians, academics, and Joe Public were all there — and engaged in question and answer." That diversity meets one of Dr. Todd Radenbaugh's primary goals for this year's conference. Radenbaugh is one of the event's main organizers, and a professor at UAF's Bristol Bay Campus.

When it was started five years ago, the conference filled a need for a forum in which to let different disciplines and approaches to science co-mingle, Radenbaugh said. It allows people who normally wouldn't talk to each other to communicate on important topics. Not just in the formality of presentation and question-answer periods, but in the informal free time surrounding the event.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Public events and conferences

(Carleton University press release, 16 April 2012) -- The Royal Canadian Geographical Society has honoured Carleton’s Christopher Burn for his contribution as vice-president of the society. He was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, given to outstanding Canadians who have contributed to Canada through their service and achievements.

“I was surprised and delighted to recieve this award,” said Burn, who was closely affiliated with the society for 10 years and served as its vice-president for five. “The society exists to help Canadians to understand their country, and so it is an incredibly important venue for national education.”

Burn has been a part of Carleton’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies since 1992. His research centres on the impact of climate change on permafrost terrain. He has been studying frozen ground for nearly 30 years and has an immense amount of experience conducting research in Canada’s north. For the past three decades, Burn has been dividing his time between central Yukon and the western Arctic. He holds an NSERC Northern Research Chair.

He is the editor of a new book, entitled Herschel Island Qikiqtaryuk: A Natural and Cultural History of Yukon’s Arctic Island, which features a substantial representation of authors with Northern origins. It will be released at the International Polar Year Conference in Montreal on April 23, 2012.

Tagged: Awards, etc., Education and outreach, News

(University of Cape Town, Museum of Nature and Temple University press release, 11 April 2012) -- Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes approximately 70 million years ago likely endured long, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes, a recent study by researchers from the University of Cape Town, Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Temple University has found.

The researchers published their findings, "Hadrosaurs Were Perennial Polar Residents," in the April issue of the journal The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology. Anthony Fiorillo, a paleontologist at the Museum of Nature and Science, excavated Cretaceous Period fossils along Alaska's North Slope. Most of the bones belonged to Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed herbivore, but some others such as the horned dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus were also found.

Fiorillo hypothesized that the microscopic structures of the dinosaurs' bones could show how they lived in polar regions. He enlisted the help of Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science, who had both expertise and the facilities to create and analyze thin layers of the dinosaurs' bone microstructure. Another researcher, Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, a professor of zoology at the University of Cape Town, was independently pursuing the same analysis of Alaskan Edmontosaurus fossils. ...

What the researchers found was bands of fast growth and slower growth that seemed to indicate a pattern. "What we found was that periodically, throughout their life, these dinosaurs were switching how fast they were growing," said Tumarkin-Deratzian. "We interpreted this as potentially a seasonal pattern because we know in modern animals these types of shifts can be induced by changes in nutrition. But that shift is often driven by changes in seasonality."

Tagged: Arctic, News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(Debra Black/Toronto Star, 11 April 2012) -- A polar bear expert and professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta is critical of the “spin” put on a recent aerial survey of polar bears in the western Hudson Bay. The study, which was conducted on behalf of the Nunavut government, found that there are likely about 1,013 polar bears in the region, which is not significantly different from a previous mark-and-recapture or tagging study done in 2004. This has led some to conclude that the polar bear population hasn’t significantly declined over the last seven years, despite the predictions of some scientists who have suggested that the population would decline to about 650 by 2011.

But Andrew Derocher, who has studied polar bears for 40 years, believes that the two surveys can’t be compared. “It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” he explained to the Star in a phone interview. The aerial study looked at a much larger region than the tagging study, Derocher said. “Effectively you can’t compare the abundance between the mark-and-recapture survey and the aerial survey directly because they’re measuring two different things.” Derocher believes the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. — a company formed to advance the rights of the Nunavut land rights agreement, including the harvesting rights of the Inuit — may have “jumped the gun rather than waiting for a complete analysis” of the survey.

Tagged: News, Research

(Mark Johnson/newsnet5.com, 8 April 2012) -- CLEVELAND - Residents in the far northern territory of Nunavut in Canada have always disputed the scientific claims that the polar bear population in the cold, arctic region was in a death spiral. Back in 2004, American and Canadian scientists claimed that the polar bear numbers had dropped a whopping 22 percent and would continue to decline over the coming years. So what did the government of this small Canadian Territory near Hudson Bay do? They counted the bears themselves. The results have seriously challenged the doomsday predictions that polar bear populations in the Arctic are in rapid decline due to global warming, climate change and climate disruption. The numbers don't lie.

The aerial survey, completed in 2010, counted 1,013 Polar Bears along the Western Shore of Hudson Bay. Why is this number significant? That's a full 66 percent higher than estimates by scientists. Nunavut Government officials said that number could be even higher. Researchers, on the other hand, have been forecasting a steady decline in bear numbers in this critical region. They predicted a population in this area of 610 bears, due to warming temperatures and melting arctic sea ice. Melting ice would, scientists claim, hurt a bear's ability to find food and cause many to die. The Nunavut region is considered particularly important. Polar Bear numbers in the Hudson Bay region are considered a good guide to other bear colonies in the Arctic region.

According to the survey results , "Polar Bear population assessment in North America has historically relied on physical mark-recapture. These studies are logistically and financially intensive, and while widely accepted in the scientific community, local Inuit have voiced opposition to wildlife handling. To better reflect Inuit values and provide a rapid tool for monitoring Polar Bear population size, we developed and implemented an aerial survey in the Foxe Basin subpopulation (FB) during late summer, 2009 and 2010." The study shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” said Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management. “There is no doom and gloom.” Since the survey was sponsored by the Nunavut government, it only covered the coastal areas in that territory, and did not cover the coastal areas in NW Quebec. So the numbers could be even higher.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(ESA press release via SpaceDaily, 5 April 2012) -- Marking another remarkable collaborative effort, ESA and NASA met up over the Arctic Ocean this week to perform some carefully coordinated flights directly under CryoSat orbiting above. The data gathered help ensure the accuracy of ESA's ice mission. The aim of this large-scale campaign was to record sea-ice thickness and conditions of the ice exactly along the line traced by ESA's CryoSat satellite orbiting high above. A range of sensors installed on the different aircraft was used to gather complementary information.

In orbit for two years, CryoSat carries the first radar altimeter of its kind to monitor changes in the thickness of ice. These airborne instruments included simple cameras to get a visual record of the sea ice, laser scanners to clearly map the height of the ice, an ice-thickness sensor called EM-Bird along with ESA's sophisticated radar altimeter called ASIRAS and NASA's snow and Ku-band radars, which mimic CryoSat's measurements but at a higher resolution.

As with any Earth observation mission, it is important to validate the readings acquired from space. This involves comparing the satellite data with measurements taken in situ, usually on the ground and from the air. The teams of scientists from Europe, US and Canada expect that by pooling flight time and the results they will get a much-improved accuracy of global ice-thickness trends measured by CryoSat and NASA's IceSat. This will, in turn, lead to a better understanding of the impact of climate change on the Arctic environment.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Research

(University of Tromsø via ScienceNordic, 23 March 2012) -- Being a polar explorer was extremely hard work, but it was certainly no bed of roses too for the explorer's wife. Sometimes it could take several years before she saw her husband again. "In the middle of March, I went ashore in Tromsø to be home for a fortnight. At home, there had come a little son. Then I had to say goodbye to my boy and wife, and head out on a journey that was planned to last for two to three years, but that would last for nearly four years."

With these words, Helmer Julius Hanssen described his "family life" with his wife Kristine Augusta before heading out on an expedition to the Northwest Passage in 1903. He accompanied the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen through both the Northwest and Northeast Passages, as well as on the famous South Pole expedition. But his life as an explorer had a downside, as he had to endure long periods without contact with his wife and children. "Based on what he says, you might think that Hanssen is without emotions, but I rather think he has developed some emotional distance from his family,” says Mary Anne Hauan, director of the University of Tromsø Museum. “Otherwise, his separation from his family would be too much to bear," she adds. We know more about what it was like for polar explorers on their expeditions, and their longing and loss, than we know about what it was like for their families to be without a husband and father for so long.

"Yes, and there were many who were gone for a long time,” says polar historian Harald Dag Jølle. He mentions Helmer Hanssen and Otto Sverdrup who went across the Arctic Ocean for three years (1893-1896) and then for another four years (1898-1902). ... Jølle says that polar explorers were paid wages, so from a financial perspective, their families managed well. “Otto Sverdrup renegotiated his wages when he got married. His wife Gretha had to depend on his income when he was travelling.” This was a time when many families had to survive long periods without a husband and father. According to Hauan, coastal women were accustomed to their men being absent, because of their work as traders and as fishermen. They were also well acquainted with the risks to which the men were exposed.

Tagged: History, News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(Summit Voice/Summit County Citizens Voice, 6 April 2012) -- SUMMIT COUNTY - Federal investigators last week continued to pursue what looks more and more like a witch hunt against scientists who are researching Arctic ecosystems by interviewing new witnesses. The investigation, which has changed course and shifted shape several times since 2010, is now looking at data from a long-running bowhead whale survey program, but the main effect has been to leave some federal scientists fearful about potential career risks associated with overseeing Arctic Research projects, according to a whistle-blower protection and watchdog group.

“The lengths of this discredited probe suggest a vendetta rather than a fair-minded inquiry,” said Public Employees for Environmental Ethics (PEER) director Jeff Ruch. PEER is providing legal representation for Charles Monnett and Jeffrey Gleason, the two researchers at the center of the probe. “Though I did not think it possible, this fishing expedition has managed to become even more attenuated and absurd,” Ruch said. The Interior Department’s inspector general started the probe in 2010, after the scientists observed drowned polar bears in open Arctic waters, which led them to author a short article in the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology.

PEER released part of an email that suggests the IG investigators are trying to determine whether dead polar bears were documented in the Bowhead whale survey database between 1987- 2003.” According to Ruch, the investigation is an apparent attempt to show that sightings of four drowned polar bears following a storm in 2004 was not remarkable. According to PEER, the IG involvement has made scientists leery of criminalizing the peer review process in publishing research. It has also made scientists who are overseeing research contracts uneasy, as well. One side-street of the IG investigation looked at a polar bear study by the University of Alberta. The IG raised issues about how the scientific merits of contracts were reviewed and approved.

Tagged: News, Research