Arctic adventures are always unique, and often surprising. Read the story of one woman’s rewarding journey at Arctic Watch Wilderness Lodge on Somerset Island in the Canadian High Arctic.
We had just gone to bed. It was after midnight and the sunlight was still shining through the tiny portion of our window that wasn’t covered by our curtain. It didn’t even feel like we were on a ship. There was no motion. No swaying left to right or right to left. Just stillness. It […]
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A new way of identifying fossils has enabled scientists to show ancient camels roamed the high Arctic Circle. Learn more on EarthSky.
Canada's northernmost research laboratory is shutting down due to lack of funding.
Oceanographic Magazine
With sea ice melting, fishing looks set to continue its expansion into previously inaccessible waters.
Rapid changes in terrain are taking place in Canada's high Arctic polar deserts due to increases in summer air temperatures. Due to record summer temperatures in recent years, high Arctic polar terrain is changing [Credit: Melissa Ward Jones] A McGill-led study published recently in Environmental Research Letters presents close to 30 years of aerial surveys and extensive ground mapping of the Eureka Sound Lowlands area of Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands located at approximately 80 °N. The research focuses on a particular landform (known as a retrogressive thaw slump) that develops as the ice within the permafrost melts and the land slips down in a horseshoe-shaped feature. The presence of these landforms is well documented in the low Arctic. But due to the extremely cold climate in high Arctic polar deserts (where average annual ground and air temperatures are -16.5 °C/2.3 °F, and -19.7 °C /-3.46 °F, respectively), and the fact that the permafrost is over 500 metres (or about 1/3 of a mile) thick, it had been assumed this landscape was stable. But the McGill-led research team found that this has not been the case. "Our study suggests that the warming climate in the high Arctic, and more specifically the increases in summer air temperatures that we have seen in recent years, are initiating widespread changes in the landscape," says Melissa Ward Jones, the study's lead author and a PhD candidate in McGill's Department of Geography. Scientists from McGill University have been mapping the high Arctic polar deserts for almost thirty years. In the past few years, as the permafrost melts, they have seen an increase and spread of landslide-like features in an area where they had believed extremely cold temperatures would ensure the stability of the land [Credit: Melissa Ward Jones] The research team noted that: - There has been a widespread development of retrogressive thaw slumps in high Arctic polar deserts over a short period, particularly during the unusually warm summers of 2011, 2012 and 2015; - That the absence of vegetation and layers of organic soil in these polar deserts make permafrost in the area particularly vulnerable to increases in summer air temperatures; - Despite its relatively short duration, the thaw season (which lasts for just 3-6 weeks a year) initially drives the development of slumps and their later expansion in size, as their headwall retreats; and - Over a period of a few years after the initiation of slumps, study results suggest various factors related to terrain (e.g. slope) become more important than air temperature in maintaining active slumps. In recent years, high summer temperatures have started melting the ice in the permafrost. As a result, land forms are changing unexpectedly [Credit: McGill University] "Despite the cold polar desert conditions that characterize much of the high Arctic, this research clearly demonstrates the complex nature of ice-rich permafrost systems and climate-permafrost interaction," adds Wayne Pollard, a professor in McGill's Department of Geography and co-author on the study. "Furthermore, it raises concerns about the over simplification of some studies that generalize about the links between global warming and permafrost degradation." Author: Katherine Gombay | Source: McGill University [May 23, 2019] Labels Arctic, Canada, Climate Change, Environment, Natural Heritage TANN you might also like Newer Post Older Post
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Weather Bleached Wooden Grave Markers Frozen graves of three crew members of the Franklin Expedition: William Braine died April 3rd 1846 aged 32 years (HMS Erebus), John Torrington died Jan 1st 1846 aged 20 (HMS Terror) and John Hartnell died Jan 4 1846 aged 25 (HMS Erebus). Grave of Thomas Morgan (HMS Investigator) died aboard HMS North Star 1854.
Claire Harkess RSW - Norse Poets : The Whale's Bane
In a new study, scientists describe three new, but long-extinct, walnut species on an island above the Arctic Circle. The fossils were discovered further north than any known walnut species, living or extinct, and represent some of the oldest-known records of this group. Today, the Canadian islan
This isn’t the Russia you hear about on cable news. You can't fake the beauty of this place hundreds of miles past the Arctic Circle, where the midnight sun shines, its rays catching a giant white bear curled up on an ice floe. This is Franz Josef Land, where neither people nor politics exist.
