(National Snow and Ice Data Center, January 2010) -- NSIDC and NASA data scientists proved the use of 21st-century techniques to revive data from 1960s satellites. Scientists today who study polar sea ice conditions rely on satellite records reaching back to 1979. But soon, data scientists hope to extend the look back by another decade or more. Researchers at NSIDC and NASA have shown that the oldest Earth observing satellite data can be made to yield new information, adding significantly to the view of Earth's climate history. When NASA launched the first Nimbus satellite in the 1960s, they also launched an era of Earth observations from space. While the early Nimbus satellites provided meteorological and other observations, methods did not yet exist to detect features such as the margins of the sea ice cover in the Arctic and Antarctic. Even if they had, the limits of computer processing in those days would have made quantitative analysis unfeasible. These early satellite data still reside in NASA archives on archaic, two-inch tape media. When NSIDC scientist Walt Meier and project manager Dave Gallaher learned that NASA researchers had retrieved 1960s images of Earth from the Lunar Orbiter, they wondered if early NASA satellite data could also yield information about sea ice conditions before 1979. ...

[The task] proved more challenging than expected, due to truncated data, missing algorithms, and other issues. But the result was a global image of the Arctic from Nimbus II, captured on September 23, 1966, in higher resolution than ever seen before from this type of data. This date falls around the time that Arctic sea ice would have reached its end-of-season minimum extent. The image demonstrates the possibility of reprocessing the entire available time series, supporting new scientific study of past conditions on Earth.

Tagged: Data, News, Research infrastructure

(BarentsObserver, 3 February 2010) -- Tundra areas of the north may seem like endless wilderness with a huge potential for industrial activity. However, the activities of the industrial companies pose a challenge to the indigenous peoples' traditional use of the pasture lands and the reindeers migrating routes. In the Norwegian Barents Secretariat’s new report, Barents Review 2010, secretariat adviser Christina Henriksen writes about the complex challenges connected with co-existence of industry and indigenous peoples living in the Barents Region.

The natural resource potential of the north has contributed to an increased industrial focus on the region. North Russian and multinational companies have established activities in the region to exploit the rich deposits of oil, gas and minerals. In Nenets Autonomous Okrug as much as ninety percent of all the region's income is derived from the oil and gas industry. In recent years power has been continually transferred from local and regional authorities to the federal authorities, especially when it comes to management of natural resources.

"This has indirect impact on indigenous peoples, as discussions and negotiations regarding regional issues more often are carried out with representatives in Moscow, rather than in the respective regions," says Henriksen. Many times reindeer herders are not invited to give their view on new industrial projects in the area, since it is not mandatory to sign contracts with regional government bodies on production conditions for new industrial projects. ... Direct impact on indigenous peoples’ livelihood due to industrial expansion has required indigenous peoples in the Barents Region to join forces. Jointly, the different organizations and institutions work for the fulfillment of national and international obligations towards the indigenous peoples.

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

(Nunatsiaq News, 6 February 2010) -- Global warming in the Arctic will impose costs on the rest of the planet that could run into the trillions of dollars, a new economic report predicts. “The Arctic is the planet’s air-conditioning, and it’s starting to break down,” said Eban Goodstein, the economist who contributed a financial analysis of the report’s scientific findings. The report, by the Pew Environmental Group, attempts to calculate a dollar value for the effects of Arctic climate. The report found that if climate change continues at current rates, Arctic feedback loops will contribute the equivalent of 42 per cent of the current greenhouse gas emissions of the United States. That’s because changes in the Arctic environment also contribute to global warming. As the Arctic thaws it releases tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide when measured tonne per tonne. Also, white snow and ice reflect sunlight – and heat. Less snow and ice in the Arctic means less heat from the sun is reflected out into space and more is absorbed. “It’s becoming more and more dramatic as the climate is warmed,” said biologist Eugenie Euskirchen, the scientific contributor to the Pew report.

Tagged: News, Polar research: Reports and findings

(CBC News, 5 February 2010) -- The head of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Canada says the Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected. "It's happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections," said University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. A flaw lead is the term for open water between pack ice and coastal ice. The study aboard the Canadian Coast Guard research ship Amundsen began in July 2007 and involved 370 scientists from around the world. It was the first time a research vessel had ever remained mobile in open water in the Far North. Barber called the expedition climate scientists' "first opportunity to look at what the Arctic Ocean looks like in the middle of winter." They found that Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than scientists expected.

"We're seeing it happen more quickly than our model thought [it] would happen," said Barber. "It's an early indicator of what we can expect to happen further south," Barber said at a news conference in Winnipeg. "We can expect things to happen faster here, too." Barber said the human impact on climate is being superimposed on the natural variation in climate and temperature. The result is more variability in the climate: warm spells are getting warmer and the cold spells are getting colder. The researchers also found that storms have become more frequent in the North as the sea ice thins.

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

(Winnipeg Free Press, 5 February 2010) -- WINNIPEG - Scientists from all over the world are in Winnipeg Friday to release the preliminary findings from the largest Arctic climate change study ever conducted in Canada. University of Manitoba professor David Barber, the lead investigator in the three-year-old Circumpolar Flaw Lead System study, will join 300 scientists for the news conference just after noon. Students from across the province have also been invited to attend the news conference.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Public events and conferences

(Gabriel Zárate/Nunatsiaq News, 4 February 2010) -- A project that promises to revolutionize the way traditional knowledge is gathered and used across Nunavut’s vast expanse has run into a problem all too familiar to software entrepreneurs everywhere — it’s running out of cash. The Igliniit Project has spent two years testing and refining a computer program for hunters to log what they see and do on while out on the land. But as the money from the International Polar Year’s research winds down, Igliniit looks to new sources to continue its work. Since Igliniit’s inception five years ago it has spent around $260,000 in technology, travel and fees.

 Shari Gearheard, one of the project’s coordinators, said it’s not clear how much more the project will need. That will depend on what new applications her group chooses to develop. She was looking to scientists’ groups and the departments of the Government of Nunavut for fresh funding. Igliniit has produced a program for a pocket computer to record weather data and hunters’ observations while on the land. Using a stylus on the touch-screen, hunters can record what they encounter while hunting or traveling. Igniniit’s coordinators presented their work in Iqaluit on Jan. 27 to a full house at Nunavut Arctic College and Unikkaarvik Visitors Centre.

The machine has icons for a variety of Arctic animals, as well as weather conditions, ice conditions, and even garbage, all though a pictographic interface in both English and Inuktitut syllabics. If it’s an animal, the hunter can record if he simply saw it or shot it. As a hunter taps the icons of what he sees, the machine records the time and the location of the sighting. Although the computer has GPS capability, it’s only for recording locations, not navigation. Hunters can do that on their own, Gearheard explained. The machine has an external weather sensor, which can be mounted on a snow machine or dog sled. The sensor takes readings of air pressure, humidity and temperature every 30 seconds. The weather data combined with the hunters’ observations has the potential to produce an enormous amount of raw data on areas of the Arctic seldom visited by researchers.

Gearheard said she hoped every hunters and trappers organization in Nunavut would consider using the Igliniit system to document their land. “The more you have eyes out there, the more you can share information,” she said.

Tagged: Arctic, News, Research, Research infrastructure

In an effort to generate discussion in the northern studies community about recent works in the field, book reviews from the Fall 2009 issue of The Northern Review have been published on homepage of the Northern Research Network website. Book titles and reviewers are listed below. The NRN homepage is here: http://northernresearchnetwork.electrified.ca Members of the Northern Research Network will also find the reviews in the book review section of the website. In addition, the book reviews published in print by The Northern Review will soon be available on the journal's new website.

The Northern Review is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal concerned with exploration of human experience in the North. Yukon College publishes the journal twice a year, in spring and fall. Submissions in the social sciences, humanities and arts are welcome. Contact managing editor Deanna McLeod at dmcleod at yukoncollege.yk.ca or visit http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/review

Tagged: News, Publication

(University of Chicago Press Journals press release via EurekaAlert via ScienceDaily, 28 January 2010) -- New research suggests that animals living at high latitudes grow better than their counterparts closer to the equator because higher-latitude vegetation is more nutritious. The study, published in the February issue of The American Naturalist, presents a novel explanation for Bergmann's Rule, the observation that animals tend to be bigger at higher latitudes.

Ever since Christian Bergmann made his observation about latitude and size in 1847, scientists have been trying to explain it. The traditional explanation is that body temperature is the driving force. Because larger animals have less surface area compared to overall body mass, they don't lose heat as readily as smaller animals. That would give big animals an advantage at high latitudes where temperatures are generally colder. But biologist Chuan-Kai Ho from Texas A&M University wondered if there might be another explanation. Might plants at higher latitudes be more nutritious, enabling the animals that eat those plants to grow bigger?

To answer that question, Ho along with colleagues Steven Pennings from the University of Houston and Thomas Carefoot from the University of British Columbia, devised a series of lab experiments. They raised several groups of juvenile planthoppers on a diet of cordgrass, which was collected from high to low latitudes. Ho and his team then measured the body sizes of the planthopppers when they reached maturity. They found that the planthoppers that fed the high-latitude grass grew larger than those fed low latitude grass. The researchers performed similar experiments using two other plant-eating species — grasshoppers and sea snails. "All three species grew better when fed plants from high versus low latitudes," Ho said. "These results showed part of the explanation for Bergmann's rule could be that plants from high latitudes are better food than plants from low latitudes." Although this explanation applies only to herbivores, Ho explained that predators might also grow larger as a consequence of eating larger herbivores.

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

(Donald G. McNeil Jr./New York Times, 25 January 2010) -- The kind of worm and protozoan infections that are often called neglected “tropical” diseases are also common among aboriginal peoples living in the Arctic, according to a recent survey. Outbreaks of trichinosis, a larval-worm disease commonly associated with eating undercooked pork and carnivorous wild game, also occur among people who eat infected polar bear and walrus meat, and the Arctic harbors a unique species of the worm that can survive subzero temperatures. Mild infestations cause nausea and stomach pain; severe ones can kill.

In Alaska, there are sporadic human cases of a fish tapeworm known as diphyllobothriasis. Echinococcosis, a tapeworm disease that fills human lungs or livers with cysts that can crush blood vessels or kill if they rupture, needs both canines and hoofed animals in its life cycle. In New Zealand, it once thrived in sheep and working dogs; in the Arctic, it cycles between reindeer and elk and both wolves and domesticated dogs. It is declining in Alaska and Canada, where snowmobiles are replacing sled dogs, but is still common in Siberia and northern Russia.

Toxoplasmosis, a particular threat to pregnant women, also occurs in the Arctic, though its origins are mysterious. With domestic cats uncommon, it may be linked to wild lynx, but it seems to be picked up from eating caribou and seal.

The survey, "Neglected Infections of Poverty among the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic" was published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases by Dr. Peter J. Hotez, who edits the online journal. Cit: Hotez PJ (2010) Neglected Infections of Poverty among the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 4(1): e606. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000606

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

(NiCHE, 19 January 2010) -- Between 1920 and 1960, Canada's northwest subarctic region experienced late-stage rapid industrialization along its large lakes. These included Lake Winnipeg, Lake Athabasca, Great Slave Lake, and Great Bear Lake. Powered by high-energy fossil fuels, the natural resources of the northwest were integrated into international commodity markets and distributed throughout the world. Whitefish from the large lakes found their way onto dinner plates in New York while uranium from Canada's northwest fueled the world's most destructive weapons, atomic bombs.

Professor Liza Piper joins us this month to discuss her new book The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada from UBC Press. This book explores a region unfamiliar to most Canadians and how that space was transformed through industrial processes in the twentieth century. Rather than finding industrial technologies dominating the landscape of the northwest, Professor Piper found that humans used those technologies to assimilate nature. [See also other podcasts in History of the Environment at NICHE's iTunes page]

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

(Gabriel Zárate/Nunatsiaq News, 22 January 2010) -- Two of the most respected and influential wildlife conservation groups in the world have come out against calling polar bears an endangered species. TRAFFIC, the international non-governmental organization that monitors the trade of wild plants and animals and their products, has submitted documents opposing the reclassification of polar bears proposed by the U.S. government. TRAFFIC’s steering committee is composed of members of the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

“The threat to polar bears is not from trade. It is not really a concern at this time,” said Andrew Derocher, a member of the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group. “We are looking to the future, 40 years, for polar bears to be in trouble due to habitat loss and the effect of climate change.”

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

(IPY Oslo Science Conference, 21 January 2010) -- The IPY Oslo Science Conference will be the biggest polar science meeting ever. The steering committee members, meeting in Oslo today, already feel that it is a long way towards a great success. To cater for some groups the committee has decided to accept abstracts submitted up until the 25th January. ...

The IPY Oslo Science Conference is already twice as large as the last, and up to then largest, global polar science meeting in terms of submissions. ... [It] has so far received abstracts from 58 nations. This largely overlaps with the 60 nations that participated in the International Polar Year.

Tagged: IPYLegacy, News, Public events and conferences

(ScienceDaily, 23 January 2010) -- Recent observations show that Beaufort Sea ice was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009. Sea ice cover serves as an indication of climate and has implications for marine and terrestrial ecosystems. In early September 2009, satellite measurements implied that most of the ice in the Beaufort Sea either was thick ice that had been there for multiple years or was thick, first-year ice.

However, in situ observations made in September 2009 by Barber et al. show that much of the ice was in fact "rotten" ice — ice that is thinner, heavily decayed, and structurally weak due to a uniform temperature throughout. The authors suggest that satellite measurements were confused because both types of ice exhibit similar temperature and salinity profiles near their surfaces and a similar amount of open water between flows. The authors note that while an increase in summer minimum ice extent in the past 2 years could give the impression that Arctic ice is recovering, these new results show that multiyear ice in fact is still declining.

The results have implications for climate science and marine vessel transport in the Arctic. The research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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

(Arctos Canadensis, 22 January 2010) --  The Nunavut Planning Commission hosts an interactive mapping tool for understanding and learning about land use issues in Nunavut. Map may also be useful to tourists and paddlers planning a trip to Nunavut. The mapping tool includes overlays for: archaeological sites, bird habitats, caribou calving areas and water crossings, land use occupancy, mining sites, park boundaries and wildlife management areas (under tourism), drainage basins, and much more.

Link to source and for more information: Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit: “Maps of the Thelon area” (Jan. 13, 2010).

Tagged: Arctic, Education and outreach, News

(Roberta Kwok/Conservation Magazine, Journal Watch, 18 January 2010) -- Two decades after the Exxon Valdez released massive amounts of oil into Alaskan waters, remnants of the spill are still lingering on nearby beaches. Now, a study in Nature Geoscience has teased apart the reasons for the oil’s stubborn persistence.

Researchers studied a gravel beach in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and ran computer simulations of fluid movement. The beach had two layers: a highly permeable upper layer, which held the oil, and a less permeable lower layer. When the water table fell to a certain point, they found, the upper layer gradually released oil into the lower layer, where it got stuck.

The findings could apply to other gravel beaches, which are common in the mid- to high latitudes, the authors say. Such beaches can form two layers when waves and tides push small grains to the bottom. And the number of oil spills in the Arctic could soon go up as ice cover continues to melt, opening new passages to ships. DOI: 10.1038/NGEO749

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