Arctic sea ice news stories on Newser

Arctic Ice Nears Historic Low

Mark Russell — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:22:00 CDT

A set of dubious honors for the volume of ice covering the Arctic: It hit a record low in 2010, according to researchers, breaking the 2007 record—and those same scientists say this year may be a record-breaking one, too, reports the Alaska Dispatch . Since researchers began measuring Arctic ice...

Walruses Short-Changed on Fed Protection

Rob Quinn — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:19:34 CST

The Interior Department has decided that walruses are endangered enough to warrant protection—but it's not going to give it to them. The threat to the Pacific walrus from global warming reducing Arctic sea ice is very real, officials say, but limited government resources mean protection will have to wait...

Arctic Melting May Bring New Beast: Polar-Grizzly

Matt Cantor — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:21:52 CST

Melting arctic sea ice isn’t just threatening polar bears’ lives—it’s threatening their gene pool. The loss of ice means more contact between polar bears and genetically-similar grizzlies, which means cross-breeding, scientists say. Hunters have shot at least two polar-grizzly crosses since 2006, the Independent reports. Other species appear to...

Melting Ice Forces Thousands of Walruses Ashore

Rob Quinn — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:15:00 CDT

Tens of thousands of walruses have squeezed onto small patches of Alaska's shore because of melting ice floes. Scientists say the loss of sea ice has forced the lumbering creatures into a mass migration to land. The huge number of walruses foraging in a small area makes cubs extremely vulnerable...

Climate Change Reverses 8 Millennia of Arctic Cooling

Harry Kimball — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:09:44 CDT

Summer temperatures in the Arctic have climbed 2.2°F since 1900 despite an 8,000-year cooling trend, the Guardian reports. For the past few thousand years, the orbit of the Earth and the changing tilt of its axis has put the Arctic 630,000 miles further from the sun than...

White House Mulls Drastic Action on Climate Change

Nick McMaster — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:27:07 CDT

Global warming may get to the point where drastic "geo-engineering" measures to cool the earth will be necessary, President Obama’s top science adviser tells the AP. John Holdren said shooting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight is a last resort, but one he's raised with other...

Climate Alarmists Are Off Base: George Will

Matt Cantor — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:55:35 CST

George Will set off a flurry of criticism this month with a column that questioned global warming. In his Post column today, he's not backing down, taking particular aim at the New York Times —long “a megaphone for the alarmed.” A Times article by Andrew Revkin asserted that “experts” attacked...

Arctic Melt Speeds Up

Matt Cantor — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:27:01 CST

The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, scientists have found, in a phenomenon not expected for at least another decade. This fall, temperatures in some areas of the Arctic were as much as 10 degrees warmer than normal thanks to Arctic amplification, which could mean the...

Early Plankton Blooming May Starve Ocean Creatures

Rob Quinn — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:23:19 CST

A vast and colorful explosion of life in the Arctic Sea—the sudden, unprecedented blossoming of phytoplankton prompted by warming waters—could spell death for untold numbers of creatures, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Phytoplankton, a microscopic but vital part of the food chain, is blooming—and swiftly dying—at...