Arctic nations and fishing powers sign ‘historic’ agreement on fishery Officials from five Arctic countries and five major distant fishing powers reached an “unprecedented” agreement Thursday on a legally binding international accord that will protect nearly three million square kilometres of the Central Arctic Ocean from unregulated fishing. Radio Canada International Once signed, the agreement […]
Arctic European Report A new report from the European Environment Agency shows how Europe affects the Arctic environment, which is warming at a rate of almost twice the global average, and how changes in the region impact Europe in return. Arctic heavy fuel oil to be discussed at International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting The International […]
David Barnes, British Antarctic Survey: Last week we have put out two new papers about blue carbon ecosystem services on polar continental shelves. Unlike elsewhere there is evidence that some ecosystem services in polar seabeds are actually increasing with sea ice losses providing a powerful feedback against climate change. I hope these abstracts at least […]
On the back of the record lows of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice levels MPs from the Environmental Audit Committee have launched a new inquiry (see below) to look at the implications for UK. NASA: sea ice extent sinks to record lows at both poles Arctic sea ice appears to have reached a record low wintertime […]
Climate change experts always warn of exceptional weather and earlier this year we highlighted this in relation to the northern floods and rainfall levels. This set of five articles outlines how thinking is changing on: 1 & 2 How scientists are attributing exceptional weather events to climate change 3 – 5 Cover more extremes: global temperatures […]
Independent: ‘Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research […]