Posts

April 24, 2013

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3:02 PM | New insights: global warming drivers in the 20th century and beyond

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Researchers have combed through the last 2,000 years of climate records. Their assessment affirms that a persistent long-term cooling trend concluded in the late 19th century, reversed by global warming. The study was performed by members of the "2K Network" of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP) Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, supported by both the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation. The […]

April 03, 2013

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2:52 AM | Plants march north

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists The face of the Arctic is changing as plant growth flourishes further north than before. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982." This change accompanies the ongoing anthropogenic climate change associated with our warming world. Satellite data from the past 30 years helped […]

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2:52 AM | Plants march north

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists The face of the Arctic is changing as plant growth flourishes further north than before. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982." This change accompanies the ongoing anthropogenic climate change associated with our warming world. Satellite data from the past 30 years helped […]

March 20, 2013

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4:17 AM | Permafrost scientist snowmachining from Alaska to Atlantic

by Ned Rozell Kenji Yoshikawa will soon sleep on brilliant, blue-white landscape that has never felt the imprint of his boots. Beginning on spring equinox, the permafrost scientist and a partner will attempt to drive snowmachines from Prudhoe Bay to Canada’s Baffin Island. While traveling a distance equal to Seattle to Tokyo to Seattle over land and sea ice, Yoshikawa will camp outside villages in an Arctic Oven tent. Along the way, stopping at village schools in Canada’s far north,... Read […]

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4:17 AM | Permafrost scientist snowmachining from Alaska to Atlantic

by Ned Rozell Kenji Yoshikawa will soon sleep on brilliant, blue-white landscape that has never felt the imprint of his boots. Beginning on spring equinox, the permafrost scientist and a partner will attempt to drive snowmachines from Prudhoe Bay to Canada’s Baffin Island. While traveling a distance equal to Seattle to Tokyo to Seattle over land and sea ice, Yoshikawa will camp outside villages in an Arctic Oven tent. Along the way, stopping at village schools in Canada’s far north,... Read […]

February 25, 2013

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7:45 PM | Small rise in global temperatures could thaw permafrost

Stalagmites and stalactites reveal a 500,000-year history of Siberian permafrost

February 21, 2013

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7:00 PM | Cave deposits reveal permafrost concern

Greenhouse gases currently trapped in the frozen soil risk release past a 1.5°C temperature threshold for melting at the permafrost boundary, found in a 500,000 year record collected by Anton Vaks from the University of Oxford, and his colleagues.

A. Vaks, O. S. Gutareva, S. F. M. Breitenbach, E. Avirmed, A. J. Mason, A. L. Thomas, A. V. Osinzev,5 A. M. Kononov, G. M. Henderson (2013). Speleothems Reveal 500,000-Year History of Siberian Permafrost, Science,

Citation

February 07, 2013

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4:54 AM | The Mysterious Moving Rocks of Mars

How did the boulders in the picture above end up in clumps and arcs instead of randomly distributed across the surface? That’s the focus of the paper “Possible Mechanism of Boulder Clustering on Mars” by Travis Orloff, Mikhail Kreslavsky, and Eric Asphaug that is currently In Press in the journal Icarus.

February 06, 2013

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8:21 AM | Carbon in permafrost and tomorrow’s atmosphere

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Carbon is the building block of life. Our knowledge of current climate change, however, has us counting how much carbon enters the atmosphere. We burn fossil fuels, adding anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon dioxide to the air. Meanwhile, natural processes also add carbon to the air. We know that methane can arise from warming lakes and oceans. Methane traps heat roughly twenty times as efficiently as does carbon dioxide. Methane and carbon dioxide are […]

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8:21 AM | Carbon in permafrost and tomorrow’s atmosphere

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Carbon is the building block of life. Our knowledge of current climate change, however, has us counting how much carbon enters the atmosphere. We burn fossil fuels, adding anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon dioxide to the air. Meanwhile, natural processes also add carbon to the air. We know that methane can arise from warming lakes and oceans. Methane traps heat roughly twenty times as efficiently as does carbon dioxide. Methane and carbon dioxide are […]

January 29, 2013

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11:11 PM | Bison Bob a big discovery on the North Slope

by Ned Rozell As she scraped cold dirt from the remains of an extinct bison, Pam Groves wrinkled her nose at a rotten-egg smell wafting from gristle that still clung to the animal’s bones. She lifted her head to scan the horizon, wary of bears that might be attracted to the flesh of a creature that gasped its last breath 40,000 years ago. In the type of discovery they have dreamed about for years, Groves and Dan Mann, both researchers... Read more

January 09, 2013

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2:22 AM | Dust on the sun’s mirror

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Imagine yourself on a Colorado mountain slope. Bumblebees buzz happily around dwarf bluebell blossoms, and the spring sun is bright. Except not all is well. The flowers bloom a good seven hundred feet upslope of where they grew five years ago, forcing bees ever higher. Bright petal colors are faded: the flowers are past their prime, plants already flagging. And broad-tailed hummingbirds are only now arriving from their northward migrations. Their customary […]

January 04, 2013

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1:00 PM | What we’re reading

As we head into the first weekend of the new year, here’s a few things we’ve seen that might be worth your screen-time: In the journals Nicholson, W.L., Krivushin, K., Gilichinsky, D. & Schuerger, A.C. 2012. Growth of Carnobacterium spp. … Continue reading →

January 01, 2013

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7:38 PM | Dramatic report card for the Arctic in 2012

by Ned Rozell Northern sea ice is at its lowest extent since we've been able to see it from satellites. Greenland experienced its warmest summer in 170 years. Eight of 10 permafrost-monitoring sites in northern Alaska recorded their highest temperatures; the other two tied record highs. 2012 was a year of “astounding” change for much of the planet north of the Arctic Circle, said four experts at a press conference here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a five-day... […]

December 07, 2012

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2:00 PM | Heat Release From Eurasian Soils Amplifies Arctic Warming

Two of the strongest knobs on Earth’s thermostat sit in the Arctic: sea ice and permafrost. Both spur feedback loops that can ripple down to lower latitudes and alter global weather patterns. Oliver Frauenfeld, a climatologist at Texas A&M University, thinks he has found another important knob on Earth’s thermostat that has hitherto been overlooked.

December 06, 2012

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4:47 PM | How the Warming Arctic Affects Us All

On September 16, the extent of the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap reached a new low, breaking the previous record low set in 2007. Some scientists believe that, at this rate, the Arctic could be ice-free by 2030 or even earlier. The Arctic may seem remote, but the overall rate of global warming, our climate and weather, sea levels, and many ecosystems and species will be affected by the warming that is occurring there.

November 27, 2012

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9:01 AM | Grappling With the Permafrost Problem

The math of controlling climate change could get even trickier as scientists begin to factor in emissions of carbon that is expected to be released from the melting of permafrost.

October 17, 2012

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2:03 AM | A Portal to Toolik Field Station

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists We know that the Arctic holds unique climate conditions and a complex carbon balance. Tundra fires and thawing permafrost release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while unique ocean currents and cold waters prompt higher levels of ocean acidification. Methane emerges from sea and soil. The Arctic sea ice cover shrinks to increasingly startling extents. Plant life changes in response to altered conditions, and wildlife struggles to adapt. […]

October 10, 2012

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10:28 PM | The Climate Show #29: if the sun don’t come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain

This week The Climate Show brings you an all news special. We have wet summers for Europe, permafrost warming delivering a methane kick, La Niña driving floods that make sea level fall, a glacier calving in Antarctica, mammoths and sabre tooth tigers — all delivered with Glenn and Gareth’s inimitable panache (!). Watch The Climate [...] [Get the full story at Hot Topic...]

August 26, 2012

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8:24 AM | Why Arctic sea ice shouldn’t leave anyone cold

In this guest post Neven Acropolis, the man behind the excellent Arctic Sea Ice blog, looks at the reasons why we need to pay attention to the rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Arctic sea ice became a recurrent feature on planet Earth around 47 million years ago. Since the start of [...] [Get the full story at Hot Topic...]

June 03, 2012

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5:02 PM | Warming Arctic Tundra Producing Pop-Up Forests

Matted tundra plants are sprouting into forests in a fast reaction to Arctic warming.

February 15, 2012

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12:32 AM | The Benefits of Soil Carbon

The UN Environment Programme’s just released Year Book 2012 includes a report The Benefits of Soil Carbon which looks at the vital role played by soil carbon in regulating climate, water supplies and biodiversity, and maintaining the ecosystem services that we depend on. The report is 15 pages long and well presented for general reading. [...] [Get the full story at Hot Topic...]

January 25, 2012

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3:04 PM | Talik

Taliks are found in permafrost regions. Permafrost is the easy word - it means of course permanent frost or in particular permanently frozen ground, or should I say frozen groundwater. Talik is not that easy to understand for non-russian speakers - it is derived from таять which means melt or thaw. So permafrost is permanently frozen ground, and talik is a (Russian) term for permanently unfrozen ground in regions of permafrost. Most permafrost areas have an upper active layer that is [...]

December 29, 2011

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12:23 PM | The Puzzle of Rising Methane

Methane is already at two and a half times the level that prevailed in the atmosphere before the Industrial Revolution. After a hiatus, it has been rising again in the last few years for reasons that researchers do not fully understand.

November 09, 2011

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4:10 PM | The permafrost metagenome

Permafrost is soil that has been at or below freezing for two or more years, and it plays host to a specialised microbiota. In permafrost, because it is so close to freezing, a small change in temperature will have a large impact on ice melting, and may increase the levels of decomposition of the microbiota, which will release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

July 07, 2011

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3:12 PM | The discovery of the periglacial realm

The term periglacial was introduced by the Polish geologist Walery von Lozinsk in 1910 and 1911 to describe the particular mechanical weathering he had observed in sandstones of the Gorgany Range in the southern Carpathian Mountains - today the reactions of the permafrost to changing temperatures is one of the major fields of research. Read more about the periglacial realm on the American Scientific Blog.

March 03, 2011

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10:01 AM | The Climate Show #8: Kevin Trenberth and our shaky future

The Climate Show returns with a packed show, featuring one of the world’s best known climate scientists, NZ-born, Colorado-based Dr Kevin Trenberth — star of the Climategate “where’s the missing heat” emails. He’s been in New Zealand to visit family (experiencing the Christchurch quake in the process) and to attend a conference, and his comments [...] [Get the full story at Hot Topic...]

November 29, 2010

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7:49 PM | Tundra, Permafrost, Fires, and Methane

Global warming is leading to environmental changes in the Arctic, including shrub cover expansion, sea ice shrinkage, thaw of permafrost, release of methane, and increasing tundra fires.An analysis of sediment cores from the burned area at the Anaktuvuk River in Alaska revealed that the fire there in September 2007 was the most destructive tundra fire at that site for at least 5,000 years - with more than 1,000 km2 burned. For the past 60 years, annual mean temperatures during the [...]