New York Times – Climate scientists have long warned that global warming could unlock vast stores of the greenhouse gas methane that are frozen into the Arctic permafrost, setting off potentially significant increases in global warming. Now researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and elsewhere say this change is under way in a little-studied area under the sea, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, west of the Bering Strait. Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the university and a leader of the study, said it was too soon to say whether the findings suggest that a dangerous release of methane looms. In a telephone news conference, she said researchers were only beginning to track the movement of this methane into the atmosphere as the undersea permafrost that traps it degrades.
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Vancouver Sun – One of Canada’s top archeologists argues in a new book that the prehistoric ancestors of this country’s 55,000 Inuit probably migrated rapidly from Alaska clear across the Canadian North in just a few years — not gradually over centuries as traditionally assumed — after they learned about a rich supply of iron from a massive meteorite strike on Greenland’s west coast. The startling theory, tentatively floated two decades ago by Canadian Museum of Civilization curator emeritus Robert McGhee, has been bolstered by recent research indicating a later and faster migration of the ancient Thule Inuit across North America’s polar frontier than previously believed. Now, in a just-published volume of essays by some of the world’s leading Arctic archeologists, McGhee advances his theory — a 4,000-kilometre beeline quest for iron from Greenland’s famous Cape York meteorite deposit — as the likeliest explanation for the sudden spread of the Thule culture across Canada around 1250 AD.
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The next 10 to 20 years could be extremely significant for restoring wild populations of American bison to their original roaming grounds. But for this to happen, more land must be made available for herds to roam free, government policies must be updated and the public must change its attitude towards bison.
International Union for Conservation of Nature – A new publication by IUCN, American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010 (PDF), reports on the current status of American bison, in the wild and in conservation herds, and makes recommendations on how to ensure that the species is conserved for the future. “Although the effort to restore bison to the plains of North America is considered to be one of the most ambitious and complex undertakings in species conservation efforts in North America, it will only succeed if legislation is introduced at a local and national level, with significant funding and a shift in attitude towards the animal,” says Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.
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YouTube – Journey deep inside the Canadian Shield as we visit Slave Craton, an ancient crustal remnant from the Eoarchean erathem. Our journey starts in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada as we head 450km north by ski-plane to the shores of the Acasts River, home of the worlds oldest rocks, the Acasta Gneiss (pronounced “nice”). Features interview with NWT artist, author, prospector, and municipal dump curator Walt Humphries.
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Flickr – This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer .386 square mile of our planet. These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.
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Alaska Science Forum – Born in Florida and raised in New Mexico, Matthew Sturm somehow became an expert on snow. During the past 30 years, he has traveled thousands of miles on the substance, counted how many grains it takes to cover a football field to a depth of two feet (1 trillion), and has spent so much time lying on his side and squinting through a hand lens that he swears he has seen molecules of water moving through the snowpack. Now, he has written and illustrated a children’s book on snow. “Apun: The Arctic Snow” and its accompanying teacher’s guide are Sturm’s attempt to “bring snow to the kids.” He works at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory on Fort Wainwright.
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Nature – Canada is the second largest polar nation and among the wealthiest, giving it a responsibility to lead in stewardship of the Arctic. In keeping with its tradition of advancing polar science, Canada invested Can$156 million (US$147 million) during the 2007–09 International Polar Year (IPY), seeding a resurgence of scientific activity and outreach. Sadly, the post-IPY future does not look as bright.
The capacity to support researchers in remote field sites has plummeted, making it difficult for Canadian researchers to continue crucial monitoring of the fast-changing Arctic environment, from receding glaciers to disappearing polar-bear habitat. Worse, the restricted logistical funds aren’t distributed in partnership with money from the main granting body — the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). So researchers with grant money in their pockets, and government affirmation that their research is important, often can’t afford to pay for their fieldwork.
The underlying problem is the lack of a national polar policy, which would commit Canada to clear objectives and better coordinate research activities. The need for such a policy topped the list of recommendations in a 2005 NSERC report called From Opportunity to Action: A Progress Report on Canada’s Renewal of Northern Research (PDF). The lack of such a policy leaves many Canadian scientists feeling voiceless and chronically insecure about research support.
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News.com.au – Pictures of what is purportedly the “largest three-dimensional street-painting ever done” are flooding onto the internet and attracting a world-wide fascination. Aptly painted on a road called River Street and a major attraction during this year’s ‘Moose Jaw Prairie Arts Festival’ in Canada, the artwork has become a popular topic of conversation on hundreds of blogs and forums. Entitled Turning River Street into a river, German painter Edgar Muller and a team of artists managed to turn about 280 square metres into a river – complete with a waterfall and a raft.
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The bones and tusks of the ancient creatures are becoming more prevalent as permafrost thaws. Now entire villages are surviving on the trade in mammoth bones.
Los Angeles Times – The beasts had long lain extinct and forgotten, embedded deep in the frozen turf, bodies swaddled in Earth’s layers for thousands of years before Christ. Now, the Russian permafrost is offering up the bones and tusks of the woolly mammoths that once lumbered over the tundra. They are shaped into picture frames, chess sets, pendants. They are gathered and piled, carved and whittled, bought and sold on the Internet. The once-obscure scientists who specialize in the wastelands of Siberia have opened lucrative sidelines as bone hunters, spending the summer months trawling the northern river banks and working networks of locals to gather stockpiles of bones. They speak of their work proudly, and a little mystically. “You need to have luck to find bones,” said Fyodor Romanenko, a geologist at Moscow State University. “I don’t look for bones. I find them. They find me.”
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All Things Considered (NPR) – As a child, Philip Hoare was always scared of water. But he was always fascinated, too — specifically by the creatures dubbed the “leviathans of the deep.” So how did this frightened boy who didn’t learn to swim until age 25 end up snorkeling with sperm whales? That’s just one of the story lines that flows through his new book, The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea. Hoare tells NPR’s Guy Raz that the whale “represents this huge paradox: It’s the world’s greatest animal, hugest animal, and yet we hardly ever see it. When we do, we just see this jigsaw component — a fluke or a dorsal fin or a pectoral fin. We can never put this jigsaw together.” In fact, the author says, “The notion of seeing them as a natural wonder is a very recent thing. It really started in the 1960s. No one had filmed a sperm whale underwater at all until long after we’d landed on the moon.”
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