Clipmarks | jetcloud's 'arctic' clips

Arctic seabed afire with lava-spewing volcanoes

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:32:08 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

The Arctic seabed is as explosive geologically as it is politically judging by the "fountains" of gas and molten lava that have been blasting out of underwater volcanoes near the North Pole.

"Explosive volatile discharge has clearly been a widespread, and ongoing, process," according to an international team that sent unmanned probes to the strange fiery world beneath the Arctic ice.

They returned with images and data showing that red-hot magma has been rising from deep inside the earth and blown the tops off dozens of submarine volcanoes, four kilometres below the ice. "Jets or fountains of material were probably blasted one, maybe even two, kilometres up into the water," says geophysicist Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who led the expedition.

The team explored the volcanoes last summer as the Russians were planting a flag on the nearby sea floor triggering an international flap over ownership of the seabed.

Tags: arctic, volcanoes

Rapid permafrost thaw expected

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:09:32 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "Climate warming is degrading permafrost, and roads, runways and building foundations in many parts of the North have been buckling and cracking as the top layer of the ground thaws. The increasingly mushy ground also has created "drunken forests," where trees now lean at strange angles.

At least 30 per cent of all the carbon stored in soils worldwide is found in the North -- and scientists worry rising temperatures will release carbon dioxide and methane, both potent greenhouse gases, now locked in the permafrost.

"To me, probably the biggest uncertainty is whether methane emissions are going to go up, and if they are, by how much," says Lawrence.

Last summer, the Arctic sea ice shrank to more than 30 per cent below average, setting a modern-day record. Temperatures over land in the western Arctic also were unusually warm, reaching more than 2 C above the 1978-2006 average and raising questions about whether the ice retreat was tied to the warming temperatures over land."

Clip Source: www.canada.com

researchers warn

Melting could happen much more quickly than previously thought, putting towns and roads at risk, study says

Permafrost, which covers close to half of Canada and threatens to release vast stores of carbon into the atmosphere, could undergo a much more rapid thaw than previously thought, according to an American study.

The rate of climate warming over northern Canada, Alaska, and Russia could more than triple if Arctic ice continues to retreat rapidly, says the report, which highlights the vulnerability of permafrost and the roadways, communities and ecosystems now sitting on the frozen ground.

"We are expecting the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the world, and this suggests that in relatively short, 5-10 year periods that rate of warming can really go up," says David Lawrence, lead author of the study conducted at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Tags: permafrost, arctic, climate warming, canada, drunken forests

Family found safe after six days lost in Arctic

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:53:39 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "During the day, the couple pulled the sled with the children inside, attempting to reach Hall Beach.

Meanwhile, ground crews began searching for the family on Sunday when they failed to arrive. It wasn't until Thursday that the weather lifted and a helicopter and airplane were able to join the search.

Bill Kennedy, a search co-ordinator in Repulse Bay, told The Canadian Press it was a group of Rangers -- mostly aboriginal military reservists -- who eventually found the family.

They followed a set of tracks that led to a burned-out snowmobile that the family appeared to have set on fire as a smoke signal to rescuers, CP reported. However, heavy cloud cover had made it impossible for rescuers to see the plume of smoke. "

Clip Source: www.ctv.ca

A family of seven that spent six days lost in the Canadian Arctic survived by huddling inside a tent set up inside a makeshift igloo.

The family -- with five children under 12 -- was found safe Thursday, with the parents dragging a sled carrying their children.

None of the family members were injured in the ordeal.

They had been on a 250-kilometre trek, by snowmobile and sled, from Repulse Bay to Hall Beach, Nunavut when they took a wrong turn and got lost.

They had set out from Repulse Bay on May 1.

"We followed the tracks and we took a wrong turn," Merrill Siusangnark, the father, told CTV's Canada AM on Friday from Hall Beach.

"When I finally realized I didn't know the land that we were on, that we were in the wrong place, I tried to turn back to where I knew the land but my Ski-doo couldn't drag the komatik (sled)."

The family survived the frigid Arctic nights in a tent set up inside a makeshift, igloo

around a small stove

with a

supply of seal oil to burn

The Siusangnark family

Tags: canadian arctic, survived

North Pole could be ice free in 2008

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:11:44 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: environment.newscientist.com

You know when climate change is biting hard when instead of a vast expanse of snow the North Pole is a vast expanse of water. This year, for the first time, Arctic scientists are preparing for that possibility.

"The set-up for this summer is disturbing," says Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). A number of factors have this year led to most of the Arctic ice being thin and vulnerable as it enters its summer melting season.

In September 2007, Arctic sea ice reached a record low, opening up the fabled North-West passage that runs from Greenland to Alaska.

[Video]

"There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment," says Serreze. "This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year."

Tags: north pole, arctic ice, canada, climate change

Thousands of Pacific walruses die; global warming blamed

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:25:42 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: And then, along comes a Polar Bear...

Clip Source: canadianpress.google.com

In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers.

The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia.

"It was a pretty sobering year - tough on walruses," said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time.

But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said.

walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer

with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt

Tags: pacific walruses, arctic circle, killed- in- stampedes, climate change

Arctic Impact Crater Lake Reveals Interglacial Cycles in Sediments

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:38:01 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "The coring equipment and other instrumentation was set up using a tripod over the hole in the ice. The scientists were able to extract a core of the topmost 8.5 meters of sediment.

The international team of researchers in the field included Guillaume St-Onge; Reinhard Pienitz, principal investigator; Veli-Pekka Salonen of the University of Helsinki, Finland; and Richard Niederreiter, coring expert. Please visit http://www.cen.ulaval.ca/pingualuit/index.html for more information."

Clip Source: dailyheadlines.uark.edu

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A University of Arkansas researcher and a team of international scientists have taken cores from the sediments of a Canadian Arctic lake and found an interglacial record indicating two ice-free periods that could pre-date the Holocene Epoch.

Sonja Hausmann, assistant professor of geosciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, and her colleagues will report their preliminary findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting this week.

Sonja Hausmann, professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas (center) and her colleagues prepare to ride Ski-doos to get their equipment to Lac Pingualit. They took a core of sediments from the crater lake and found evidence of two ice-free periods that could pre-date the Holocene Epoch.

The researchers had to pull the equipment into the crater-fed lake using sleds.

spent three weeks traveling back and forth to the lake in sub-zero temperatures to gather their data.

Tags: arctic, climate change, global warming, last ice age, meteorite, canadian arctic lake, sonja hausmann

Hunting male polar bears could endanger species: data

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:08:34 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "... We have a policy to preferentially harvest males over females, and the argument behind that is that the females are the ones doing the reproduction,"

Polar bears typically mate from the beginning of April to the end of May, when males follow the trails of females in heat.

If they like each other, they will mate over a period of about 2 1/2 weeks, after which the female is generally pregnant.

The male will then wander off in search of other females.

Study looked at the number of males that searched for and found females, how long the pairs stayed together, if the males found other mates, and how many females a male could fertilize in a breeding season.

Molnar said there currently appears to be no problem with the pregnancy rate. In Lancaster Sound, for example, 99 per cent of females find partners.

The paper says that if the number of males declined to a threshold of two males for every three females, it could lead to a dramatic and rapid reproductive collapse o

Clip Source: www.canada.com

EDMONTON -- It's unbearable: The selective hunting of male polar bears could eventually leave lovelorn females out in the cold, newly published data suggests.

A University of Alberta study of 2,500 polar bears from the central Arctic has found that the policy of killing only males could mean fewer pregnancies for females.

"We need to carefully monitor sex ratios because, if you lose too many males from the population, eventually females will be unable to find mates," the study's lead author, Peter Molnar, said Wednesday.

"That could lead to a decline in pregnancies and such a decline could happen very rapidly."

The study combined mathematics and biology to examine data from 1997, the latest numbers available for that population of bears.

In natural conditions, Molnar said there would be two to three males for every female

"But because we have taken out males for so many years, we are now one to one. . . .

Tags: arctic, canada, killed, meat, polar bear

Man walks 10 hours across Arctic tundra while family waits in igloo

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:06:28 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "Their journey began Saturday night, when the three packed up their snowmobile with a couple of knives, five Arctic char and some seal fat. They set out from their home in Hall Beach, Nunavut, expected to arrive in Igloolik within two and a half hours - a distance of about 80 kilometres across fields of ice.

Their trouble began when they had to made a detour overland because warmer temperatures had made the ice soft.

Right around the time the engine on their snowmobile konked out, a blizzard blew in.

"Luckily, I had my knives, including my snow knife. But it took me four hours to build an igloo in that blizzard," he recalled.

Once Innuarak had their igloo built, the family started a fire with the seal fat and ate one of the five fish they'd brought with them."

With the temperature outside dipping at one point to - 38 C with the windchill, they began to feel afraid."...

Clip Source: www.canada.com

When the seal fat for the fire ran out, they'd been sleeping for five nights in an igloo in the middle of a trackless Arctic waste.

With a broken-down snowmobile and their cache of fish running out, Laimiki Innuarak, 63, decided he had no choice left - he had to walk until he reached a settlement, or he, his wife Rachel Aglak, and their adopted four-year-old son Noah Jonah Aglak would die in the freezing polar dark.

While little Noah and his mother wept and worried in the igloo Innuarak had made for them, the man finally set out on foot Thursday morning at 7:30. He walked for the next 10 hours.

"It was really hard for me," Innuarak said Friday from his sister's home in Igloolik - a small island between Baffin Island and the Melville Peninsula about 2,300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

"It was really cold, and all I had with me was a knife and a stick. I couldn't stop thinking about my wife and child I'd left behind."

Tags: canada, igloolik, baffin island, arctic

Remote-controlled aircraft would patrol Arctic: military

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:43:45 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "The military hopes to acquire the new aircraft within five years, but does not yet know how many it will buy or where it will buy them from.

There is no estimate yet on how much the aircraft will cost, though Williams said the drones are typically less expensive than the Aurora patrol aircraft the military currently uses when it flies surveillance missions.

UAVs are more affordable because they are generally smaller, lighter and cheaper to build than Auroras, and they use less fuel, need less maintenance and require fewer crew members with less training."

Clip Source: www.cbc.ca

The Canadian military plans to buy a fleet of remote-controlled aircraft to patrol the Arctic, an official told CBC News.

The General Atomics Predator shown here is capable of both reconnaissance and armed attack. The Canadian Forces have not yet decided on the type of drone it will purchase for northern surveillance.
(Courtesy of General Atomics)

Lt.-Col. Wade Williams said the drones, known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, will be equipped with cameras, radar, radios, electronic sensors and possibly even weapons.

They will fly day-long surveillance flights over water, land and ice while being piloted by an air crew stationed on the ground at a control station that could be thousands of kilometres away.

"I think UAVs will go a long way to alleviating the requirement to have constant manned aircraft in the air," said Williams, who is with the military's UAV program.

"They can do a lot of the eyes and ears missions that are being done today with manned aircraft."

Tags: aircraft, canada, military, weapons, arctic, canadian forces

NASA video: astounding arctic sea ice melt

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:38:31 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.desmogblog.com

[Video]

Here's new NASA satellite video showing the astounding loss of Arctic sea ice

From NASA: The 2007 Arctic summer sea ice has reached the lowest extent of perennial ice cover on record - nearly 25% less than the previous low set in 2005.

The area of the perennial ice has been steadily decreasing since the satellite record began in 1979, at a rate of about 10% per decade. But the 2007 minimum, reached on September 14, is far below the previous record made in 2005 and is about 38% lower than the climatological average. Such a dramatic loss has implications for ecology, climate and industry.

Tags: climate change, global warming, arctic sea ice.

Simultaneously, Russia and America Conduct Major War Games

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:48:55 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Russian strategic bombers Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, and Il-78 aerial tankers "will conduct flights over the Arctic region, the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, and the Black Sea, with simulated bombing raids and firing of cruise missiles at testing grounds in northern and southern Russia," Colonel "Alexander Drobyshevsky said." (RIA Novosti).

Part of these Russian war games will be conducted in the Arctic, within proximity of US and Canadian territory (Alaska and Canada's Arctic).
"U.S. and Canadian fighter jets, including F-15s, were dispatched each time to escort the Russian planes in the exercises, which ranged from two to six aircraft,... "

Clip Source: www.globalresearch.ca

The Russian Air Force will be conducting major military exercises over a large part of its territory from the 16th to the 30th of October.

These Russian exercises coincide chronologically with the conduct of major US sponsored war games under Vigilant Shield 08, which are slated to take place from the 15th to the 20th of October.

The US exercise code named Vigilant Shield 2008 (VS-08) is casually presented as an "anti-terrorist drill". While under the joint auspices of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, US Northern Command in liaison with NORAD is in charge of the operation.

VS-08 includes a massive deployment of the US Air Force and Canada's Air Force. It resembles a war-time scenario with the deployment of bombers and fighter jets over the entire North American continent extending into the Arctic.

In what visibly appears to be a confrontational scenario, the Russian war games commence one day after the launching of the US sponsored VS-08.

Tags: aircraft, canada, contrails, war-games

‘stunned’ Scientists

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 04:54:17 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Similar entries
* Canada's typical summer heats up, especially in the Arctic
* Arctic sea ice retreats to record low by end of summer with ominious consequences for global warming
* Arctic Passage - Step Right Up, Sail on Through
* Arctic to Skeptics: 'Read My Tips'
* Hot Time -- Bad Timing
The good news is that solutions to global warming exist, check out Ross Gelbspan’s Green Sheet and his vision for a pathway to climate peace. Or, check out the latest below:
Federal report scorns Canada's climate-change plan for exaggerating carbon cuts
*
Scientists ‘stunned’ as Arctic sea ice shrinks to 30-year low
*
Green groups sue Canadian government over Kyoto targets
*
John Marburger, Climate Alarmist?
*
Recent books on global warming; Neros at their fiddling...

Clip Source: www.desmogblog.com

Bill Miller

Scientists ‘stunned’ as Arctic sea ice shrinks to 30-year low

21 Sep 07

Ice in the Arctic has melted to its lowest level since record keeping began nearly 30 years ago, reaching a minimum area on September 16 that was 1.2 million square kilometres below the previous mark from 2005.

Scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice DataCenter said sea ice extent appears to have reached its minimum with the chances of it reaching a lower level unlikely this year.

"The amount of ice loss this year absolutely stunned us, because it didn't just beat all previous records, it completely shattered them," said senior scientist Mark Serreze.

Earlier, Environment Canada reported that last summer was the seventh-warmest on record, with temperatures 0.9 C higher than average. Canada's all-time high was 1.8 C above normal in 1998.

U.S. Canada University of Colorado Environment Canada Arctic global warming climate change

Tags: arctic, climate change, global warming, north pole

contrail.gi.alaska.edu

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 04:23:33 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Condensation trails (contrails) formed by aircrafts are sometimes visible from the ground for several
hours. Numerous contrails are formed in the vicinity of main air- traffic routes; due to additional
spreading effects contrails may contribute significantly to the total cloud cover. Continuous
observational methods are used to study the formation of contrails in the subarctic setting of
Fairbanks, Alaska. Since March of 2000 a contrail database has been established, which includes
contrail characteristics, Federal Aviation Administration flight data, and atmospheric measurements
derived from radiosonde ascents at Fairbanks International Airport. The contrail analysis is based on
all-sky digital camera imagery and direct observations of aircrafts.

Daily Overflights for Fairbanks, AK airspace.

Note: Page was updated for the last time by Martin Stuefer, 13.Apr.2006.
The flight data is no longer being updated. However, the flight archive is available.
http://contrail.gi.al

Clip Source: contrail.gi.alaska.edu

On Oct 17th 2003, the United States Air Force conducted manuevers in the Fairbanks area that resulted in many spectacular contrails. The formations of jets ranged in number from 3 to 7 and some examples of the resulting contrails are shown below. Also shown is the output of the UAF Contrail Forecast based on atmospheric sounding measurements at Fairbanks Airport showing the contrail layer for that day.

Click on the image for larger view.
Photos taken October 17, 2003 by Martin Stuefer

Tags: aircraft, arctic, climate, climate change, cloud, contrails, global warming, jetclouds, north pole, spacejunk

Belching British Bogs Fueled Ancient Global Warming

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:28:29 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so a big and rapid release of methane from wetland deposits would represent a huge and rapid positive feedback,"
"There is a great deal of methane generated in wetlands by microbial activity. Warming or more precipitation could cause rates of microbially mediated methane production to increase,"
"Methane already appears to be seeping out of once frozen bogs in Siberia."
Warmer, wetter weather is likely to promote methane release in wetlands worldwide"

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

The emissions probably amplified an ancient and extreme global warming event that heated Arctic Ocean waters to a balmy 73 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius).

Warm, wet weather likely accelerated the rotting of plant material, which in turn triggered the methane burps from the Cobham Lignite bog, the researchers said.

Assuming that other wetlands responded in a similar way, such large amounts of methane could explain the extreme global warming seen at the time.

"If the increase in methane emissions were widespread, the increased methane flux from these settings could have amplified the warming occurring at this time," Pancost said.

Because methane is a key greenhouse gas, some scientists worry that a similar scenario today could trigger a runaway greenhouse effect. (Get the facts about global warming.)

Continued on Next Page >>

Tags: arctic, climate change, global warming, north pole

Canada's true north, strong and free – and wild

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:48:29 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

There is a simple and elegant way for Canada to assert sovereignty over the Northwest Passage and the Arctic Ocean.

The solution is to create a network of marine protected areas across the Arctic. Call them water parks — untouched areas where narwhals, polar bears, walruses, Arctic cod and seabirds can watch their seascape melt. These mysterious, cold ecosystems, previously locked under ice, are just now revealing their secrets.

Putting real dollars behind the protection of these watery ecosystems will speak more loudly than convenient military deployment. Our claim to the Arctic must go deeper than soldiers on the tundra and anemic icebreakers crunching what is left of our melting seascape.

It must be based on more than our greed over potential oil reserves. Our claim to the Arctic must also prove a "Canadianism" — a place we cherish and protect, defending that true north so it remains strong and free — and wild.

Tags: arctic, climate change