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In The News

Climate change: ‘Last refuge’ for polar bears is vulnerable to warming

A new study finds that an area of the Arctic Ocean critical for the survival of polar bears is fast becoming vulnerable to climate change.

The region, dubbed the “last ice area” had been expected to stay frozen far longer than other parts of the Arctic.

But this new analysis says that this area suffered record melting last summer.

The researchers say that high winds allied to a changing climate were behind the unexpected decline.

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Edge of Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf is ripping apart, causing key Antarctic glacier to gain speed
June 11, 2021 – “We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected,” said lead author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. “The processes we’d been studying in this region were leading to an irreversible collapse, but at a fairly measured pace. Things could be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf.”
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PSC lost a dear friend, Andy Heiberg (1938-2021)
The APL family lost a dear friend and a key figure in our success in polar oceanography when Andy Heiberg passed away at home with his family on February 17, 2021 after short struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Andy was an internationally known expert in operations and logistics for scientific fieldwork on sea ice. His career at the APL Polar Science Center began before PSC was part of APL and even before PSC was created…..
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Welcome to PSC, Michalea King
November 02, 2020 – @Michalea_King: This week, I officially (but remotely) begin my postdoctoral fellowship at APL @PolarScience_UW at the University of Washington. Looking forward to working with a lot of fantastic people and making the big cross-country move to Seattle in January!

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Some polar bears in far north are getting short-term benefit from thinning ice
September 23, 2020 – New research shows that Kane Basin polar bears are doing better, on average, in recent years than they were in the 1990s. The study, published Sept. 23 in Global Change Biology, finds the bears are healthier as conditions are warming because thinning and shrinking multiyear sea ice is allowing more sunlight to reach the ocean surface, which makes the system more ecologically productive.

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Catch her drift: UW sea ice scientist Maddie Smith set to embark on one-of-a-kind polar expedition
May 8, 2020 – Maddie Smith is ready to drift through life for a little while. But it’s not because she’s lost focus. In fact, the postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory is embarking on the trip of a lifetime for any scientist interested in better understanding global warming.

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First results from NASA’s ICESat-2 map 16 years of melting ice sheets
April 30, 2020 – Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, a team of scientists led by the University of Washington has made precise measurements of how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.

“If you watch a glacier or ice sheet for a month, or a year, you’re not going to learn much about what the climate is doing to it,” said lead author Benjamin Smith, a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. “We now have a 16-year span between ICESat and ICESat-2 and can be much more confident that the changes we’re seeing in the ice have to do with the long-term changes in the climate.

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A Satellite Lets Scientists See Antarctica’s Melting Like Never Before
April 30, 2020 – PSC researcher Ben Smith’s paper ‘Pervasive ice sheet mass loss reflects competing ocean and atmosphere processes’ discussed in the New York Times.

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New data from space is providing the most precise picture yet of Antarctica’s ice, where it is accumulating most quickly and disappearing at the fastest rate, and how the changes could contribute to rising sea levels.
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Without the women of NASA, space exploration would be just a dream.
March 08, 2020 – This #InternationalWomensDay join us in celebrating the women whose grit, ingenuity and talent drives us forward in our mission to boldly expand frontiers in air and space. Thank you for pushing boundaries, serving as role models and shaping space, science and discovery every day!

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Polar bears are getting thinner and having fewer cubs. Melting sea ice is to blame
February 14, 2020 – The impact of the climate crisis is becoming more and more obvious to humans and their animal neighbors. But among all species, polar bears might be some of the hardest hit.
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Polar bears in Baffin Bay skinnier, having fewer cubs due to less sea ice
February 12, 2020 – Polar bears are spending more time on land than they did in the 1990s due to reduced sea ice, new University of Washington-led research shows. Bears in Baffin Bay are getting thinner and adult females are having fewer cubs than when sea ice was more available.
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Polar Bears Struggle as Sea Ice Declines
February 4, 2020 – A polar bear’s life seems simple enough: eat seals, mate, and raise cubs. But a recent study shows some subpopulations of polar bears are struggling to complete these essential tasks because of declining concentrations of Arctic sea ice.
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Last Arctic ice refuge is disappearing
November 12, 2019 – Former UW Arctic Fulbright Chair, Kent Moore with PSC researchers Axel Schweiger, Jinlun Zhang and Mike Steele on how the oldest and thickest Arctic sea ice is disappearing twice as fast as ice in the rest of the Arctic Ocean.
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Nexus Media: Century-Old Ship Logs Show How Much Ice the Arctic Has Lost Old, handwritten logbooks prove computer models are right — the Arctic has lost a frightening amount of sea ice
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Popular Mechanics: How Century-Old Ice Data Is Helping Track a Melting Arctic
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Century-old ship logs reveal extent of today’s drastic Arctic melt
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Two UW ice researchers to participate in year-long drift across Arctic Ocean
September 20, 2019 – PSC’s Bonnie Light and Madison Smith will participate in the MOSAiC expedition in 2020. Read the UW News story to learn about the expedition and how it will contribute to Arctic research.
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Century-Old Ship Logs Show How Much Ice the Arctic Has Lost
September 17, 2019 – Research by Axel Schweiger and Jinlun Zhang in Collaboration with Kevin Wood from JISAO reconstructs sea ice volume and thickness since 1901.
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Shipping logs show how quickly Arctic sea ice is melting
August 13, 2019 – The Economist covers research by Axel Schweiger and Jinlun Zhang in collaboration with Kevin Wood at JISAO. Reconstruction of sea ice thickness and volume since 1901 uses logs from old US revenue cutters traveling in the Arctic in the early 20th century.
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Hacking ICESat-2: How an Open Science Workshop Helped Scientists Wrangle Big Data
August 2019 – NASA’s Center for Climate Simulation reported on the recent Cryospheric Science Hackweek held at UW. The article includes an interview with PSC’s Anthony Arendt and workshop coverage from other planners, facilitators, and participants.
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Congratulations, Sarah Dewey!
Congratulations to PSC’s Sarah Dewey for passing her PhD Defense! She presented her research earlier this month with her talk, Evolving Ice-Ocean Dynamics of the Western Arctic.
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ICESat-2 Hackweek 2019
June 18, 2019 – This week is ICESat-2 Hackweek 2019, held at the University of Washington. Participants are learning about technologies used to access and process ICESat-2 data with a focus on the cryosphere.
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Researchers test ice probe on Mount Baker
June 15, 2019 – PSC’s Dale Winebrenner and his team conducted fieldwork on Mount Baker’s Easton Glacier with the help of a local snowmobile club. The team is involved in developing equipment to better study lakes beneath not only the Antarctic ice but hopefully under the ice on other planets.
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Low‐Level and Surface Wind Jets Near Sea Ice Edge in the Beaufort Sea in Late Autumn
June 6, 2019 – The latest paper authored by Zheng Liu and Axel Schweiger has been published in JGR Atmospheres. Read how dropsonde observations made from Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Survey flights were used to examine low‐level and surface “ice edge jets” in the Beaufort Sea.
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The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come
The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to comeIf the thinning trend continues, scientists fear an added boost to global warming.Chris Mooney of the Washington Post talked with Axel Schweiger and other scientists about sea ice loss in the Arctic
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AGU Fall Meeting 2018
PSC members join their colleagues and peers at the AGU Fall Meeting 2018 in Washington DC.
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Study finds healthy group of polar bears in sea near Alaska
The AP News talks to PSC’s Eric Regehr, the lead author of a polar bear study published in Scientific Reports. Regehr was involved in the first formal count of polar bears in waters between the United States and Russia. Despite being listed as a threatened species because of diminished sea ice due to climate change, Regehr and his colleagues estimate a healthy and abundant population in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast.
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First tally of U.S.-Russia polar bears finds a healthy population
UW News covers PSC’s Eric Regehr’s polar bear study of the Chukchi Sea subpopulation. This is the first formal study of this population and is published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports. Read on to learn more about the lead author’s decade-long project and the status of the Chukchi Sea polar bears.
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APL-UW 75th Anniversary Seminar Series: Polar Science Center
Kristin Laidre presented the fourth seminar in the APL-UW 75th Anniversary series, “The Polar Science Center From Ice Dynamics to Polar Bears.”
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Polar bears gorged on whale carcasses to survive past warm periods (video)
UW News produced a video reporting on Kristin Laidre‘s recent study of carcasses of stranded whales as a food source for polar bears during past warm periods in the Arctic. The short clip accompanies the university news source’s article and interview of Kristin and co-authors.
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Polar bears gorged on whale carcasses to survive past warm periods, but strategy won’t suffice as climate warms
UW News covers Kristin Laidre‘s recent study of carcasses of stranded whales as a food source for polar bears during past warm periods in the Arctic. The university news source talks with Kristin and her co-authors and provides access to the research paper.
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ICESat-2 Launches, Promising New Era of Glaciology and Polar Oceanography
The Applied Physics Laboratory-UW interviews PSC’s Jamie Morison and Ben Smith about ICESat-2, their roles in the NASA project and how it will improve research efforts and data. Watch the video here or on APL’s YouTube channel.
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Beluga whales adopt lost narwhal in St. Lawrence River
PSC’s Kristin Laidre lends her expertise to a CBC News story of a juvenile narwhal adopted by a pod of Beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River.
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Greenland’s Polar Bear Hunters Face a Climate of Change
Hakai Magazine covered a recent paper led by PSC’s Kristin Laidre and asked about the collaborative project in which Kristin, the research team, and interpreters interviewed Inuit hunters and gathered traditional knowledge on polar bear ecology in East Greenland. Read the article to find out how the subsistence and cultural relationships have changed for the arctic animals & Indigenous communities.
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UW scientists monitoring arctic ice by NASA satellite
PSC’s Jamie Morison and Ben Smith are interviewed by KING 5 news about NASA’s latest space laser, Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), which launches 15 September. ICESat-2 helps monitor glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets via NASA satellite technology. Watch the interview to learn more.
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Dataset Highlight: Investigating Rotten Ice, with Dr. Karen Junge
The Arctic Data Center, supported by NSF, has highlighted Karen Junge’s work investigating rotten ice. Data has been collected on both the physical and biological properties of rotten ice and is available from the center.
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Narwhals Are Real, And They Could Be in Real Trouble
Atlas Obscura covers a recent study led by former PSC postdoc Donna Hauser, along with Kristin Laidre and Harry Stern. The travel source shares how increased ship traffic in the Arctic increases the vulnerability of many marine mammals, especially the narwhal.
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Vulnerability of Arctic marine mammals to vessel traffic in the increasingly ice-free Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route
The Arctic passageways have experienced increased commercial traffic due to less sea ice for longer durations. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recent PSC postdoc Donna Hauser and co-authors, Kristin Laidre and Harry Stern, show the vulnerability of 80 subpopulations of seven endemic Arctic marine mammal species to vessel traffic across the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route during the open-water season.
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East Greenland’s Inuit Hunters Are Teaching Scientists About Polar Bears
What is traditional knowledge and how can it help us understand climate change? Online news source, Earther, talks to Kristin Laidre about her recently published research involving some of the Inuit communities of East Greenland. Inuit sustenance hunters were interviewed about their livelihood, the landscape of their homeland, and more to form a picture of how things have changed over time.
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A promising target in the quest for a 1-million-year-old Antarctic ice core
UW News talks to PSC’s Laura Kehrl about a recently published study identifying a locale in #Antarctica that may provide a continuous ice core record of the last 1 million yrs. The research team, which included members from UW and UMaine, used ice‐penetrating radar and an ice flow model to map the promising region. Kehrl is the corresponding author for the study published in AGU’s Geophysical Research Letters. Read on to learn how the team conducted their fieldwork…
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Polar Bears… On The Edge of Extinction?
PSC’s Ignatius Rigor brings his sea ice expertise to the podcast series Science Vs as they investigate the idea of the polar bear moving toward extinction.
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Traditional Knowledge About Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in East Greenland: Changes in the Catch and Climate Over Two Decades
How has the loss of sea-ice and other effects of climate change impact Inuit communities that rely on polar bears for nutritional, economic, and cultural subsistence? Frontiers in Marine Science, the open-access journal, has published a report where Kristin Laidre and her colleagues examined Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) survey results collected from subsistence polar bear hunters living in East Greenland.
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Here’s what vanishing sea ice in the Arctic means for you
The Verge, a news website for the mainstream, interviewed PSC’s Ignatius Rigor and other researchers to find out how vanishing sea ice in the Arctic impacts the general public.
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UW researcher, Fulbright Scholar, spent winter above the Arctic Circle
UW Today talks to Cecilia Peralta Ferriz about her experiences in Norway, as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, before she returns to Seattle at the end of May.
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Ionospheric correction of InSAR data for accurate ice velocity measurement at polar regions
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is a widely used tool for measuring ice sheet velocity in the Polar Regions. However, the ionosphere is a prevalent source of noise in these data. Ian Joughin is a co-author of a study, published in the May 2018 issue of Remote Sensing Environment, where a split-spectrum technique was utilized, and its performance analyzed, for correcting ionospheric effects in InSAR-based ice velocity measurements in Greenland and Antarctica. Read on to learn if the technique effectively reduced noise level…
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EDITOR’S HIGHLIGHTS – A possible link between winter Arctic sea ice decline and a collapse of the Beaufort High?
Axel Schweiger, Jinlun Zhang, and Mike Steele are co-authors on an article that earned the Editor’s Highlight for AGU’s recent Geophysical Research Letters. Read on to learn why the article, Collapse of the 2017 Winter Beaufort High: A Response to Thinning Sea Ice?, drew such attention…
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Chasing Narwhals, Unicorns of the Sea
Third Pod from the Sun, the American Geophysical Union’s podcast, kicks off the month of March with PSC’s Kristin Laidre.
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2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting
The 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM), co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), and The Oceanography Society (TOS), will be held 11–16 February, in Portland, Oregon. Some of the members of PSC will join their colleagues from the University of Washington and other institutions to present and discuss their latest marine science research endeavors.
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The Polar Science Center lost one of its founders: Alan Thorndike
Alan Thorndike died on Jan 8, 2018 from an aggressive pneumonia. He was 72 years old. For those of you who don’t know, Alan was one of the original AIDJEX gang and founding PIs of PSC. Working with Drew Rothrock, he developed the concept of the thickness distribution that is at the heart of most sea ice models.
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Scientists seek US backcountry skiers to measure snowpack
The Washington Post spreads the word about PSC’s Anthony Arendt’s current collaborative project, Community Snow Observations (CSO), a citizen snow-measuring program. Read more to learn how the public can participate and why measuring snow is part of the science.
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Selected Projects

Future of Ice Postdoctoral Research Opportunities in Polar Regions Research
The Quaternary Research Center (QRC) and the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, are seeking Postdoctoral Research Associates with interests in the polar regions.
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Arctic Sea Ice Extent and Volume Follow Long-term Trend
In mid-September Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum extent and volume. There are annual fluctuations — 2012 was a record low for both measures — but reports of a recent ‘rebound’ are short-sighted. Axel Schweiger explains why the downward long-term trend is clear.
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