Polar Science Center

News

Welcome, Dr. Astrid Pacini!

Welcome, Dr. Astrid Pacini! Astrid received her PhD in Physical Oceanography from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in 2022 and holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Yale.

She joins PSC as a postdoctoral research associate and holds a 2022 NSF Office of Polar Programs Fellowship. Astrid will work with Dr. Michael Steele, examining the evolution of upper ocean properties in the Arctic Ocean’s Seasonal Ice Zone. Astrid loves field work and has spent time on various research vessels, but her favorite ship will always be the RV Neil Armstrong, where she spent six months during graduate school. At the PSC, she is excited to continue mentoring high school and undergraduate students, and participating in outreach programs.
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Polar Bears That Persist

Audio clip from Scientific American’s 60-Second Science with Polar Science Center’s Kristin Laidre explaining why she and PSC alumna Twila Moon were so fascinated by their recent Science Magazine results.
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Newly documented population of polar bears in Southeast Greenland sheds light on the species’ future in a warming Arctic

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.
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New Leadership at PSC

On Oct 1, 2021 after 12.5 years at the helm of PSC, Axel Schweiger stepped back from his role as Chair of PSC. PSC sea ice researcher Bonnie Light has taken on the leadership role.
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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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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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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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Al Roker travels to the Arctic for firsthand look at climate change

April 1, 2019 – TODAY Show host, Al Roker, traveled to Utqiagvik, Alaska to report on climate change. Al talks with PSC’s Ignatius Rigor about his research and the technology being used to gather data.
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Research Highlights

Sensor-Rich Buoys in the Arctic Ocean

When doing research in the Arctic the elements are big challenge not just for the humans working there but also for the instruments used to collect data. Ignatius Rigor has set up a testing site outside of Barrow, Alaska to monitor an array of instruments and test their reliability and accuracy. Watch the video to learn more about the project.
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A New Unified Sea Ice Thickness Climate Data Record

This new data set is a concerted effort to collect as many observations of sea ice thickness as possible in one place with consistent formats and with clear and abundant documentation. It will allow the community to better utilize what is now a considerable body of observations from moorings, submarines, aircraft, and satellites.
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