UW Today highlights the latest article, by PSC’s Harry Stern and Kristin Laidre, published in The Cryosphere. Other media sources reporting the study are The Seattle Times, Science Daily, The Washington Post, Mashable, and Nature.com
read more »The Seattle Times reports on the Arctic-wide analysis of changes in sea ice that have the greatest impact on polar bears, conducted by the PSC’s Harry Stern and Kristin Laidre.
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The University of Washington’s eScience Institute is hosting a GeoHack week, November 14-18, 2016. Join PSC’s Anthony Arendt and Ben Hudson for this five day workshop focusing on open source tools to analyze and visualize geospatial data. Geohackweek will also include a team from Google Earth Engine set to lead a series of sessions. Application deadline is September 15, 2016.
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An international team of researchers, including Kristin Laidre, conducted a study involving genetic variability in polar bears. Read about the study in Animal Conservation.
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Ignatius Rigor collaborated on a study of Antarctic sea ice change using satellite observations. Read the paper presenting the findings in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment.
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The Arctic Ocean is gaining open water each summer, with some scientists predicting that the warming planet will see an Arctic Ocean that’s completely ice-free in late summer by around the middle of this century.
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Global warming not so global? PSC postdoc Aaron Donohoe has co-authored a study recently published in Nature Geoscience showing how and why the Antarctic Ocean has not warmed in comparison to what has been observed in the Arctic.
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The International Journal of Remote Sensing has published a study by Ben Hudson and his UC colleagues which assessed turbid water detection and cloud mask performance of NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) MOD35_L2 cloud mask.
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Seattle Girls’ School has named PSC PI Kristin Laidre recipient of their 2016 Grace Hopper Award for Outstanding Achievement. Kristin is being recognized for her successful endeavors to make her research efforts accessible to many age groups.
She will be honored at the SGS 14th Annual Luncheon on May 5, 2016. Congratulations, Kristin!
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Thomson Reuters named PSC Glaciologist Ian Joughin as one of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds of 2015. Congratulations to Ian for this well deserved honor recognizing his many contributions towards understanding ice sheets dynamics.
read more »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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A rotating crew of international scientists embarked on a research cruise in the Arctic and investigated the causes and effects of ice loss by monitoring the ice across its entire seasonal life cycle. UW polar scientist Kristin Laidre remarks, to Andy Isaacson of National Geographic, how further loss of sea ice could affect the Arctic marine ecosystem, from algae to polar bears.
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PSC members join their colleagues and peers at the AGU 2015 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California.
read more »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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NASA climate scientists report that Antarctica has gained ice in the form of snow accumulation. This study was recently published in the Journal of Glaciology and reporters have sought comments from their peers at the Polar Science Center.
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Results of a recent long-term and large-scale simulation of the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) show that the destabilization of the entire ice sheet would be irreversible if current conditions don’t change by 2075.
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Coast Guard C-130 take SIZRS crew to the North Pole
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PSC Glaciologist Ian Joughin was elected to be an AGU fellow as part of the class of 2015. Congratulations to Ian for this well-deserved honor recognizing his many contributions towards understanding ice sheets dynamics.
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Bering Strait is the only pathway between the Pacific and Arctic oceans. For 15 years now, APL-UW researchers and their multi-institutional colleagues have measured the properties of the flow through the strait with a series moorings that are recovered and re-deployed each summer. Follow their July 2015 CRUISE BLOG
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The Polar Science Center’s Harry Stern contributed the essay called Sea Ice in the Western Portal of the Northwest Passage from 1778 to the Twenty-First Century in this new book by the University of Washington Press.
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A new article published in Conservation Biology and featured in Science by lead author Kristin Laidre is the first to provide a comprehensive look at the current status of all Arctic marine mammal species and offer conservation recommendations.
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ONR Develops Program to Assist Ships While Navigating Through the Ice in the Arctic
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As part of the Future of Ice Initiative, the Polar Science Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory has added 3 new Principal Investigators.
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Scientific American reports on a new study deriving ice thickness trends from measurements by the Polar Science Center’s Ron Lindsay and Axel Schweiger’s article published in The Cryosphere.
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Alert in the Arctic: The Navy’s New Frontier. Features SIZRS, Jamie Morison, Sarah Dewey
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Mónica V. Orellana is included in The Oceanography Society’s publication of “Women in Oceanography: A Decade Later.” This supplementary issue of Oceanography includes more that 200 autobiographical sketches that provide a broad view or the types of research oceanographers conduct.
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The Seattle Times reviewed the Imaging the Arctic exhibit at the Nordic Heritage Museum organized by Kristin Laidre and Maria Coryell-Martin.
read more »Seattle’s Most Influential People of 2014 includes Ian Joughin from the Polar Science Center. Read the section called Ice Breaker for more.
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Airborne and satellite observations of West Antarctic topography and glacier flow speeds are combined with a computer model simulating ocean-driven glacier melting to show that the ice sheet’s collapse is already underway.
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The University of Washington is launching a new initiative to boost research in polar regions and prepare students for a world where melting ice is opening new opportunities — and posing new threats. Read the Seattle Times article to learn more about this new program.
read more »The Polar Science Center is inviting applications for research scientists with principal investigator responsibilities. We seek candidates who have completed their post doctoral research with a record that demonstrates high potential to develop their own well-funded program. Initial research support over a nominal 2-year period will come from start-up funds and existing project funds.
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A new modeling study conducted by Dr. Jinlun Zhang to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even in a warming climate.
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Learn more about the science behind the web cams and the North Pole Environmental Observatory and watch the clip from the Colbert Report.
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Expeditionary artist Maria Coryell-Martin has traveled to Niaqornat, Greenland with Kristin Laidre to document the work being done to monitor narwhals. Maria will be posting field updates with photos and artwork through mid-April.
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Increasing summer ice melt in the Arctic Ocean could shift global weather patterns and make polar waters more navigable. But scientists say forecasting Arctic ice and weather remains a massive challenge. The prospect of more ice-free water during Arctic Ocean summers has triggered efforts to improve ice and weather forecasts at the top of the world
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As sea ice disappears in the Arctic Ocean, the U.S. Coast Guard is teaming with scientists to explore this new frontier by deploying scientific equipment through cracks in the ice from airplanes hundreds of feet in the air.
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The dramatic melt expected over the next week signals that global warming is having a major impact on the polar region
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An article written by T. Moon, I. Joughin, B. Smith and I. Howat from Science/AAAS journal.
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Europe’s Cryosat mission is now watching the ebb and flow of Arctic sea ice with high precision….Tuesday’s release shows a complete seasonal cycle, from October 2010, when the Arctic Ocean was beginning to freeze up following the summer melt, right through to March 2011, when the sea ice was approaching peak thickness. Cryosat found the volume (area multiplied by thickness) of sea ice in the central Arctic in March 2011 to have been 14,500 cubic kilometres. This figure is very similar to that suggested by PIOMAS (Panarctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System), an influential computer model that has been used to estimate Arctic sea ice volume
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Investigator Matthew Alkire was recently awarded a 2012-13 Fulbright U.S Scholar Grant for his proposal titled, “Using sea ice cores to investigate the influence of glacial meltwater in surface waters of Kongsfjorden.”
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The BBC article Climate tech fixes urged for Arctic methane incorrectly identifies the University of Washington as the source for a prediction of the disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic in the next few years.
“Analysis from the University of Washington, in Seattle, using ice thickness data from submarines and satellites, suggests that Septembers could be ice-free within just a few years.”
This is factually incorrect. The graph apparently comes from an unidentified online blog posting which uses some of our data to conduct its analysis. This analysis extrapolates PIOMAS ice volume data to arrive at a date when sea ice might first disappear. This extrapolation represents the analysis and judgement of the unidentified poster of the graph. The University of Washington was not involved in this analysis. We have informed the BBC and asked for a correction.
Update: The BBC has corrected the news piece to reflect the distinction between the use of PIOMAS data and the extrapolation performed elsewhere.
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Recent research by Kristin Laidre and Harry Stern on the impacts of climate change on Arctic narwhals is published in Polar Biology. See the article in Conservation Magazine.
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PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume and excerpts from an interview with Axel Schweiger are covered in Science News. Click to read full story
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Our recent paper talking about the uncertainty in Arctic Sea Ice Volume is covered in Science News. Click to read full story
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The Guardian cites PIOMAS sea ice volume in the context of a new sea ice minimum reached according to data from the University of Bremen. Click here for full story.
read more »Polar Science Center investigator Kristin Laidre was recently featured in an online article on the Pacific Science Center’s website. This article about her work with narwhals was based on her recent “Science Cafe” presentation in Kirkland. The whole presentation entitled “Uncovering the Mysteries of the Narwhal” is on-line here.
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Polar Science Center investigator Ian Joughin and Richard B. Alley of the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University were recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Their article discusses the possibility of a large contribution to rising sea levels due to the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by global warming. The full article is available here.
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PSC graduate student Cecilia Peralta Ferriz was awarded the Best Student Poster prize at the Gordon Research Conference for Polar Marine Science on March 24, 2011.
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Three PSC investigators were recently awarded funds to support their participation in NASA’s IceBridge mission. They include Ron Lindsay, Ian Joughin and Ben Smith. IceBridge is conducting the most extensive set of airborne surveys of the polar ice caps and sea ice ever undertaken.
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