The Washington Post reports on the changes in Arctic sea ice and its effect on the polar bear. The main source of the article is a recent study by PSC’s Harry Stern and Kristin Laidre, published in The Cryosphere.
Posts Tagged «News»
Salon.com covers the use of animals, such as narwhals and elephant seals, outfitted with non-invasive devices to collect data on the effects of climate change on the environment of the Arctic and Antarctic. The article includes the work of PSC researchers, Michael Steele and Kristin Laidre.
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.
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.
Polar Science Center Chair Dr. Bonnie Light joined a group of international scientists in Bremerhaven, Germany in January 2023 to process and analyze sea ice core samples brought back from the 2019-2020 MOSAiC expedition. Photo Credit: Amy Lauren
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.
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.
Satellite tags and video cameras are successfully tracking movement and recording images of humpback whales along the Antarctic Peninsula. National Geographic asks PSC’s Kristin Laidre about the arduous methods used to collect data on marine mammals in polar environments.
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!
Matt Alkire, John Guthrie and Jamie Morison were part of an international team of researchers that studied the effects of the Atlantic Ocean on sea ice cover in the eastern Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean. Read the findings published in Science Magazine.
The Washington Post asks Ian Joughin about a recent study, in the journal Science Advances, using a GPS network which measures ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and re-evaluates previous studies.
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.
The dramatic melt expected over the next week signals that global warming is having a major impact on the polar region
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.
The Washington Post reports that although “Arctic Sea Ice Blog: Interesting News and Data” will be going on hiatus, the Arctic Sea Ice Forum will remain open and monthly PIOMAS updates will continue. Axel Schweiger comments on how the blog and the PSC dataset has helped create a thoughtful and detailed real-time public discourse.
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.
UW Today reports on the results of a study recently published in The Cryosphere, involving PSC’s Ben Smith, Alex Huth, and Ian Joughin who teamed up with the University of Edinburgh and, using satellite data, identified a considerable drainage of interconnected lakes below West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier.
An international team of researchers, including Kristin Laidre, conducted a study involving genetic variability in polar bears. Read about the study in Animal Conservation.
The Seattle Times covered Harry Stern’s research study which tracked changes along the Arctic ice edge combining modern technology and historical records such as maps and logs from Captain James Cook’s 18th-century voyage.
The UW Today reports on the open-access study recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by PSC’s Eric Regehr and a collaborative team, including Harry Stern. The team combined data collected on polar bear subpopulations with that of sea ice extent and identified ways to carry on subsistence harvesting with the least amount of negative impact already caused by habitat loss.
The Washington Post covered new research findings on narwhal physiology and asked PSC’s Kristin Laidre what it will mean for the species in a changing Arctic.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently released their Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the polar bear. Required under the Endangered Species Act, the CMP outlines what must be done for a species to recover and avoid extinction. Kristin Laidre comments for the New York Times.
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.
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.
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.
Erica Escajeda and Kristin Laidre were part of an international team of researchers that studied polar bear maternity dens and compared current data with previously published data through the 1990s. Read the findings published in Polar Biology.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
NASA’s Sea Level News provides more details on the agency teaming up with PSC’s Kristin Laidre to further the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project in progress. Data gathered by tagged narwhals will expand our understanding of both narwhal behavior and melting glaciers. Click below to learn more about the research endeavor and how the partnership came about…
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.
Narwhals are intentionally a part of NASA’S project, Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG). PSC’s Kristin Laidre explains why the whales play a vital role in studying the ice in a recent story from The Washington Post/Bloomberg News and presented by their various news outlets.
National Geographic asks PSC’s Kristin Laidre about a new unaffiliated study of the escape response of East Greenland narwhals.
The New York Times reports on a study of narwhals led by Kristin Laidre. She and her team conducted field work collecting recordings to uncover how adept the species navigate their Arctic water habitat with sound.
PSC’s Ignatius Rigor took part in buoy deployments near the North Pole, in early September, as part of the International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP) – a partnership of global participants maintaining a network of drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean. Read the Navy News Service post to learn more about IABP and the joint mission…
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.
A new population of polar bears documented on the southeast coast of Greenland use glacier ice to survive despite limited access to sea ice. This small, genetically distinct group of polar bears could be important to the future of the species in a warming world
Learn more about the science behind the web cams and the North Pole Environmental Observatory and watch the clip from the Colbert Report.
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.
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
ONR Develops Program to Assist Ships While Navigating Through the Ice in the Arctic
Reuters Environment reports on a polar bear study led by Eric Regehr and its findings which were presented by co-author Kristin Laidre at a panel discussion during the America Geophysical Union’s 2016 Fall Meeting. Satellite data documenting sea-ice loss also forecasts declines in polar bear population. Reuters briefly talks to Regehr about the specifics of the global assessment.
Geographical reports on the findings of an extensive study of polar bear populations published in Biology Letters. Read the online article with remarks from one of PSC’s contributors to the study, Kristin Laidre.
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.