Quick Key Facts What Is Arctic Sea Ice? Sea ice forms and covers most of the Arctic Ocean during the shorter, darker winter months. How much of the ocean’s surface is covered in sea ice is an important indicator of climate change. By mid-September, after the summer melt, the area covered by Arctic sea ice […]
The Norwegian Arctic is home to many animal species, including caribou, narwhals, arctic foxes, polar bears and seals, as well as the fish and plankton on which many of them feed. Recently, disturbingly high levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” have been found contaminating ice in the region, which may present a serious problem for […]
In the Arctic, a previously unknown carbon transportation route has been discovered by scientists that has the capability of binding as much as 3.97 million tons of particles rich in carbon dioxide annually from the Kara and Barents Seas and storing it in the deep waters of the Arctic for thousands of years, a press […]
Sea ice forms in the Arctic and Antarctic in winter and retreats in summer, but it doesn’t disappear completely — at least not yet. The floating frozen seawater has a surprisingly strong influence on weather patterns and ocean circulation in the polar regions and beyond. Rapidly shrinking Arctic sea ice has been one of the […]
By Jonathan Bamber The Earth is approximately 1.1℃ warmer than it was at the start of the industrial revolution. That warming has not been uniform, with some regions warming at a far greater pace. One such region is the Arctic. A new study shows that the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the […]
As climate change erodes the icy habitats of polar bears, they are left stranded from their usual food sources for longer periods of time. So instead of filling up on seals, a new study has found that polar bears are supplementing their diets with garbage, which is expected to become a growing threat to the species.
Few animals represent the face of the Arctic like polar bears. The largest bears in the world, polar bears are excellent swimmers who spend more time in the sea than they do on land. Sea ice is the platform from which they hunt the seals needed to obtain the necessary calories to survive.
President Joe Biden’s Interior Department confirmed on Wednesday that it has canceled three lease sales that would have opened millions of acres of ocean to oil and gas drilling. Two of the lease sales would have taken place in the Gulf of Mexico and a third would have taken place off the coast of Alaska […]
A new forecast by scientists from the UK’s Meteorological Office shows that the likelihood of the planet breaching the threshold temperature of 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels — above which irreversible damage to Earth’s ecosystems and devastating impacts on human, animal and plant life would be likely to occur — is increasing. The probability […]