Last week, I posted a link to an article about Ann Daniels, one of the Arctic explorers heading to the North Pole as part of the Catlin Arctic Survey.

In this week’s Guardian, John Crace looks into the training Daniels and her fellow expedition members Martin Hartley and Charlie Paton endure before they can tackle the pole. Crace paints a vivid picture:

Six am on a sub-zero morning in Devon. A five-mile run in the dark, ending in a couple of hill sprints. Breakfast. Circuit training in the barn; beyond any pain threshold to physical exhaustion. Lunch. Ninety minutes dragging weighted tyres up and down a 1:6 hill. The only upside is that the mud has frozen over. It’s mindless, repetitive, punishing effort, not improved by an ex-marine shouting in your ear. Tea. A three-mile run, followed by more circuits. Die

The article also creates a nuanced and detailed portrait of the explorers. One thing that struck me while I was reading, I was struck by how normal — and simultaneously how extraordinary — the explorers are. Everyday people, not superhuman, not Olympic athletes, aging (45 now, for God’s sake,” as Daniels readily admits), they tackle the pole, year after year, gathering data and working to mitigate climate change. Everyday heroes, exploring the Arctic.

Trial by ice – what it takes to be an Arctic explorer | Environment | The Guardian.

No Comments »

The jawbone of a fully grown male polar bear, believed to be somewhere between 110,000 and 130,000 years old, is giving scientists a rare glimpse into polar bear evolution.

Polar Bears: Younger than they look

DNA from the jawbone, which was discovered in Svalbard by researcher Olafur Ingolfsson of the University of Iceland in 2004, shows that polar bears are a relatively young species, having split from brown bears approximately 150,000 years ago and evolved rapidly during the climate changes that took place during the late Pleistocene. As Ingolfsson notes, in an email quoted on the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog,

I think our find shows that polar bears have been around for a while, and they probably have survived situations in the past where the Arctic was warmer and there was less seasonal sea ice than today. . .

I want to stress that we should be concerned about the polar bears’ future. There are other risks out there, mainly from chemical pollution of the Arctic (heavy metals, pcbs, etc). Also, increased traffic (oil tankers) when/if ship lanes open up across the Arctic Ocean could constitute a major threat.

Polar bear fossils are rare, as the animals spend most of their lives on the sea ice, which means that their remains rarely end up on land. The DNA taken from the jawbone gives researchers a rare glimpse into the lives of ancient polar bears. It is also the oldest mitochondrial sample from a mammal sequenced to date.

Read more:

Science Daily: Ancient DNA from rare fossil reveals that polar bears evolved recently and adapted quickly

Arctic Update: Resilient Bears, Shrinking Ice — Dot Earth Blog, NY Times.com

Unis: Oldest remains of a polar bear ever discovered.

No Comments »

An Arctic Kingdom Diver Enjoys a Relatively Warm Summer Swim

Today on CNN, there’s an article up about Ann Daniels, a widely respected polar explorer (and British mother-of-four) who is embarking this week on a 500-kilometer trek up the Canadian sea ice toward the North Pole, part of the 2010 Catlin Arctic Survey.

On the way, Daniels and her team will be taking water samples and other field data on the changing Arctic climate, providing raw data for scientists studying the state of the Arctic today. This year’s survey will focus on ocean acidification as increasing levels of carbon dioxide are absorbed from the atmosphere.

Another side affect of climate change is an decrease in sea ice, and a corresponding increase in the amount of swimming Daniels and her team will have to do — through cold, dark water. And swimming in the Arctic winter sea, Daniels notes, is no easy task. Along with the cold, there’s the psychological element to swimming in the winter dark:

“Nothing from under the sea is going to jump up and eat you. But as a human being there’s that feeling of, ‘what is under here? It’s pitch black and anything can get me.’ Mentally you start imagining all kinds of things in the water,” she said from her home in Devon, southwest England.

Daniels notes that, in the 13 years since she started making regular trips to the pole, the amount of swimming has increased.

The first time I swam was in 2002 and steadily we’ve had to swim more and more as the years go on, and we’re certainly expecting this year to do an awful lot of swimming. We’ve got a flotation device to go around the sledge as well because we’re expecting more water than ever before.”

via Arctic explorer prepares for icy swim – CNN.com.

No Comments »

I just got back from Vancouver, a city abuzz with talk next month’s winter Olympics (and the hopes that it will snow in time and spring will stop its early springing!). On my way home, I opened up my in-flight magazine to find  this interesting article on the climate change research currently going on in Svalbard, Norway’s high arctic archipelago.

The article details some of the research going on in Svalbard.

For this Arctic outpost, all the science is about looking ahead. After a century wresting coal from its stratified geology, near-pristine Svalbard is seeing a new light at the end of the mineshaft. Old reptile knuckles form part of that vision. Sure, commercial mining is still the breadwinner for the islands’ 2,100 inhabitants, and Longyearbyen, the archipelago’s “capital,” is heated with coal scooped out from Mine 7 at the end of the road just east of town. But scientific sleuthing (like fossil hunts, research into CO2 capture and storage and university courses in polar ecology) accounts for an ever-larger chunk of Svalbard’s revamped economy, along with welcoming tourists hoping to immortalize a member of the 3,000-strong polar bear family. Longyearbyen made front-page news two years ago when the Svalbard Global Seed Vaultswung open its brushed steel door to 4.5 million food-crop seed samples. And in September, Ny-Ålesund, an international research base some 100 kilometres northwest of Longyearbyen, stole the spotlight when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dropped in to see the effects of climate change and to hear from the climate detectives working there. With all this science, Svalbard is a living lab.

The Arctic is home to some cutting-edge science, particularly on the subject of climate change. In Svalbard, some researchers are even exploring the possibility of preserving the Arctic utilizing ice-making bacteria, which can create ice at temperatures slightly above freezing. Here, in one the areas most threatened by global warming, scientists are working towards solutions that could salvage not only the Arctic, but the global climate at large. Writer Susan Nerberg explains:

When we reach the atmospheric research station close to the summit, the microbiologists from the University of East London check their equipment: a vacuum cleaner and a strip of tape mounted to capture airborne particles that might contain ice-making bacteria. “Pure water doesn’t freeze until the temperature drops to -36.5ºC,” says Moffett. (I wonder if my old science teacher knows that.) “But some micro-organisms can produce ice at temperatures as high as -1ºC.” While this discovery is already used to create artificial snow and to preserve food, the two scientists’ main interest is the potential for weather modification. The idea is that you sprinkle bacterial protein (not live bacteria) into the air, creating ice crystals and, subsequently, clouds and rain. As Henderson-Begg explains it, “Clouds high in the atmosphere trap solar radiation, warming the planet. Low clouds reflect solar heat, keeping the planet cool. If we could modify clouds, we could prevent global warming.”

The next day, I head out with University of Sheffield plant ecologist Gareth Phoenix to collect moss campion. We hike across a delta created by glacial runoff, hopping from stone to stone in a futile attempt not to dunk our feet, until we reach a spot where the wildflower grows. The moss campion and other plants, like the polar willow, which reaches a grand height of three centimetres, will shed light on how the Arctic copes with pollution carried here from Europe. On our way back, a chubby Svalbard reindeer jogging across the moraine makes me think about the potential of the sci-fi ice bugs. It’s almost as if Phoenix had read my mind. “Svalbard is so spectacular, it makes you feel really insignificant as a human being and even more desperate to protect such a place,” he tells me. “Planet Earth has only one Arctic. It would be nice to keep it as it is.”

An Arctic Kingdom Expedition to Svalbard

No Comments »

Around the northern hemisphere, daredevils are celebrating the new year by taking a dip in ice-cold winter waters. Known as “polar bear plunges,” these celebrations embrace the new year’s cold, invigorating participants and allowing bystanders to appreciate anew their relative warmness.

Luckily for the ursus maritimus, polar bears in the wild are much more able to withstand the cold and wet, their bodies uniquely adapted to frigid northern waters with hair that traps the sun’s heat and repels water.

However, because they are so well-adapted to the arctic climate, polar bears are among the arctic animals most threatened by climate change. In the coming year, let’s all try for a little solidarity with these arctic giants. Ice-water baths optional.

No Comments »

No Comments »

Barring a colder fall, residents of Arviat, Nunavut may find themselves confronting a larger-than-normal polar bear population. The CBC reports:

Residents in the hamlet of 2,000 feared for their safety a year ago this month, when an unusually high number of polar bears were spotted roaming through the community as part of their fall migration south.

Resident Annie Ollie told CBC News that a few polar bears have already wandered near her house on the edge Arviat. She and her family are now on high alert, said Ollie, speaking in Inuktitut.

Declining sea ice may be to blame for the influx of bears, according to local conservation officer Joe Savikataaq.

If we have a quick freeze-up and the ice goes far out from the land, then we shouldn’t have too much of bear problems,” Savikataaq said. “But if the ice keeps breaking off like last year, then we may have the same number of bears again.

“What was happening last year, we kept getting strong winds off the land and it would break the fresh ice that’s forming and take it away.”

via CBC News – North – Arviat on polar-bear watch again.

No Comments »

Seals are among the species threatened by warming oceans

One of the things I get asked most often when I tell people about writing for Arctic Kingdom is, “Is there any truth to this ‘Global Warming’ thing?”

I like to see it as a sort of touching optimism. The news I read every day contains more and more bad news about melting glaciers, endangered animals, and changing weather patterns all over the world. The arctic we see on our expeditions is changing, with warmer summers, less ice, and rising sea temperatures. It would be nice if it were all a matter of opinion, but the evidence seems clear: the world’s climate is being transformed.

And the scientific community agrees. In a recent issue of the Journal Science, scientists around the globe reviewed evidence from the International Polar Year, concluding that climate change threatens species throughout the Arctic.

“It seems no matter where you look — on the ground, in the air, or in the water — we’re seeing signs of rapid change,” said biologist Eric Post of Penn State University.

The report says that a warming of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 150 years has already caused dramatic consequences.

It cautions that further changes resulting from the projected six-degree warming over the next century will be difficult to predict.

Ivory gulls, ringed seals, polar bears and narwhals are examples of species with a small distribution and specialized habitats, leaving them vulnerable to being the first species to suffer from climate change.

via Earth Week:New Arctic Emerging From Climate Change.

No Comments »

Maybe it’s Knut’s influence. Over the last few months, several German-language films about the plight of polar bears in the wild have hit both the television market and the big screen.

The latest film to come across my radar is Im Einsatz fur Eisbaren, featuring the German actor Hannes Jaenicke. Jaenicke travels to the Canadian Arctic to investigate the threats, including climate change and hunting, facing polar bears in the wild.

No Comments »

Watching Narwhals in Arctic Bay, 2002

I just stumbled across an interesting entry over on the Polar Field Services’ “Field Notes” blog summarizing current research being done on Narwhals, including the work AK blog faves Kristin Laidre and Martin T. Nweeia.

It’s an interesting post, with some great pictures and links. I was particularly interested in the news that Dr. Nweeia has recently been awarded a new grant by the National Science Foundation to continue his research into the nature and purpose of the narwhal’s tusk. Dr Nweeia will be interviewing hunters and elders in communities in Northeastern Baffin Island and Northwestern Greenland and integrating their knowledge with his scientific research to create a more complete picture of narwhal anatomy and behaviour.

via Narwhals « Polar Field Services Field Notes.

No Comments »