Tsunami Separates Ice from Antarctica

August 12th, 2011 | By Thomas Lennartz | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

This dramatic time-lapse video from NASA clearly shows the impact the recent tsunami which so tragically affected Japan had on the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Challenges To Arctic Drilling

August 10th, 2011 | By Thomas Lennartz | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

There’s a great op-ed piece up at the New York Times by writer Clifford Krauss speculating on the future of arctic drilling, now that Shell Oil has been granted conditional approval for its plan to drill in the Beauford Sea off the North Slope of Alaska.

Last year, drilling appeared to be on track until an E.P.A. appeals panel delayed an air quality permit because it wanted more time to consider the potential impact of exploration rigs’ diesel emissions on local indigenous communities. Shell decided six months ago to put off drilling until 2012, fearing it would not have time to get equipment in place for the summer drilling season.

Complicating the political calculus was last year’s deadly accident and oil spill at a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The entire piece is well worth a read, it sums up the current situation nicely and suggests a number of challenges oil companies will face, including from conservation and environmental groups.

Marine Life Crossing The Northwest Passage

August 8th, 2011 | By Thomas Lennartz | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

With seasonal melts comes access to shipping lanes generally frozen over, but as the seas warm a newer trend is emerging. Sea life including fish, whales, and microscopic plankton is also taking advantage of open routes to venture into areas previously unexplored.

The Globe and Mail reports -

“The implications are enormous. It’s a threshold that has been crossed,” said Philip C. Reid, of the Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science in Plymouth, England.

Mr. Reid said the last time the world witnessed such a major incursion from the Pacific was 2 million years ago, which had “a huge impact on the North Atlantic,” driving some species to extinction as the newcomers dominated the competition for food.

Mr. Reid’s study of plankton and the research on the whale, co-authored by Aviad Scheinin of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center, are among nearly 300 scientific papers written over the last 13 years that are being synthesized and published this year by Project Clamer, a collaboration of 17 institutes on climate change and the oceans.