Sea Ice

Arctic sea ice shrank to its smallest area on record this summer before beginning to refreeze, ­according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The sea ice extent bottomed out Sept. 16 at 1.32 million square miles, about 293,000 square miles below the 2007 record. Arctic sea ice extent has been monitored by satellite since 1979. This year's record low extent follows a long-term decline. The six lowest extents on record have all occurred in the past six years. "We are now in uncharted territory," said Mark Serreze, NSIDC...

WASHINGTON — The icy Arctic is emerging as a global economic hot spot — and one that is becoming a security concern for the U.S. as world powers jockey to tap its vast energy resources and stake out unclaimed territories. Diplomats from eight Arctic nations, including Secretary of State John Kerry, will meet next week over how to protect the thawing region as its waterways increasingly open to commercial shipping traffic. U.S. officials estimate the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world's...

The extent of Arctic sea ice has reached a record low, a historic retreat that scientists said is a stark signal of how climate change is transforming the global landscape. Scientists at the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA said that, as of Sunday, the Arctic sea ice cover had shrunk to 1.58 million square miles, the smallest area since satellite measurement began in 1979. With the melting season not yet over, the ice will almost certainly contract further in the coming weeks before...

Two biologists from a laboratory in Solomons are traveling to the Arctic with international scientists to observe the biological response to melting sea ice. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory biologists Jackie Grebmeier and Lee Cooper have gone to Seattle to gather with international scientists to establish a Distributed Biological Observatory in the North American Arctic, the center said in...

NOME, Alaska -- Hubert Kokuluk squints with his one good eye to examine the tiny polar bear he has just carved from a fragment of walrus tusk. He isn't happy with the yellowish hue, but good ivory is hard to come by these days, since quickly melting sea ice has made it extremely difficult for his Inupiaq Eskimo community to carry out the traditional annual spring walrus hunt. Though walruses are federally protected, Alaska Natives have subsistence rights to hunt them and rely on the meat, skin, intestines and tusks --...

Polar bears are ideally suited to life in the Arctic: Their hair is without pigment, blending in with the snow; their heavy, strongly curved claws allow them to clamber over blocks of ice and snow and grip their prey securely; and their rough pads keep them from slipping. The one thing they cannot survive is the disintegration of the ice. They range across the sea ice far from shore to hunt fatty seals, whose blubber sustains them. Heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions caused...

A recent controversy over claims about climate science by Post op-ed columnist George F. Will raises a critical question: Can we ever know, on any contentious or politicized topic, how to recognize the real conclusions of science and how to distinguish them from scientific-sounding spin or misinformation? Congress will soon consider global-warming legislation, and the debate comes as contradictory claims about climate science abound. Partisans of this issue often wield vastly different facts and sometimes seem to even live in...

Fermented whale's tail doesn't taste the same when the ice cellars flood. Whaling crews in this Arctic coast village store six feet of tail — skin, blubber and bone — underground from spring until fall. The tail freezes slowly while fermenting and taking on the flavor of the earth. Paying homage to their connection to the frozen sea, villagers eat the delicacy to celebrate the moment when the Arctic's ice touches shore. But climate change, with its more intense storms, melting permafrost and soil...

WASHINGTON — The icy Arctic is emerging as a global economic hot spot — and one that is becoming a security concern for the U.S. as world powers jockey to tap its vast energy resources and stake out unclaimed territories. Diplomats from eight Arctic nations, including Secretary of State John Kerry, will meet next week over how to protect the thawing region as its waterways increasingly open to commercial shipping traffic. U.S. officials estimate the Arctic holds 13 percent...

Penguin colony survives glacier break Researchers have found a long-sought colony of emperor penguins in eastern Antarctica, but they say it has been split in two due to a glacier break. Moreover, a tally of the 6,000 chicks in these two populations suggests there are more emperor penguin parents in that part of the continent than previously thought. French scientists spied the waddling, flightless birds on winter sea ice near the Mertz Glacier while on their way to...

‘Interwoven " is not a craft show, but at times it feels like one. Materiality is front and center at this Arlington Arts Center exhibition, the subtitle of which — "Art. Craft. Design. " — gives only second billing to what is most obvious, and best, about the show. That's the craft. Although "Interwoven" tries to give equal emphasis to all three, the exhibition is a roundup of eye candy featuring beadwork, crochet, embroidery, papier-mache, cast glass, basket weaving and jewelry (albeit a fairly unwearable choker made of piano...

Penguin colony survives glacier break Researchers have found a long-sought colony of emperor penguins in eastern Antarctica, but they say it has been split in two due to a glacier break. Moreover, a tally of the 6,000 chicks in these two populations suggests there are more emperor penguin parents in that part of the continent than previously thought. French scientists spied the waddling, flightless birds on winter sea ice near the Mertz Glacier while on their way...

Her face is tucked under a solid wave inside a whalebone. She is Sedna, the sea goddess who lives in the cold waters of the Arctic, where she is feared and revered by hunters and those traveling on the sea ice. It is said that when she is angered, she causes famine by withholding sea animals from hunters and whalers. According to Inuit legend, the only way to soothe Sedna is to send a shaman into the depths of the ocean to comb her hair, which has become tangled by the...

Arctic bowhead whales have lost a significant portion of their genetic diversity in the past 500 years, according to a study to be published online Friday in the journal Ecology and Evolution. Scientists drew on hundreds of DNA samples from both living whales and samples obtained from vessels, toys and housing material made from whale baleen and preserved in pre-European settlements in the Canadian Arctic. The bowhead — which can span up to 65 feet in length and weigh as much as 100 tons — gets...

Arctic sea ice shrank to its smallest area on record this summer before beginning to refreeze, ­according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The sea ice extent bottomed out Sept. 16 at 1.32 million square miles, about 293,000 square miles below the 2007 record. Arctic sea ice extent has been monitored by satellite since 1979. This year's record low extent follows a long-term decline. The six lowest extents on record have all occurred in the past six years. "We are now in uncharted territory," said Mark...

THE ARCTIC IS GETTING warmer faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. The latest evidence came in an announcement from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center saying that, as of Aug. 26, the Arctic sea ice cover shrunk to 1.58 million square miles this summer, the smallest area since satellite measurements began in 1979. The trend is expected to continue in the next few weeks. Over the past three decades, the average extent of the Arctic sea ice has declined by 25 to 30...

Ice melt poses obstacles for polar bears Polar bears are swimming longer distances because of melting sea ice, according to a new study conducted with satellite tracking devices. The research, presented July 19 by U.S. Geological Survey biologist Anthony Pagano at the International Bear Association Conference, identified 50 long-distance swims by adult female polar bears between 2004 and 2009 in the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas. "Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears'...

The Obama administration said last week that it plans to designate more than 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas. Federal law bars agencies from taking actions that may adversely affect critical habitat and interfere with polar bear recovery. Assistant Interior Secretary Thomas Strickland called the habitat designation a step in the right direction to help polar bears stave...

The extent of Arctic sea ice has reached a record low, a historic retreat that scientists said is a stark signal of how climate change is transforming the global landscape. Scientists at the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA said that, as of Sunday, the Arctic sea ice cover had shrunk to 1.58 million square miles, the smallest area since satellite measurement began in 1979. With the melting season not yet over, the ice will almost certainly contract further in the coming weeks before...

Fermented whale's tail doesn't taste the same when the ice cellars flood. Whaling crews in this Arctic coast village store six feet of tail — skin, blubber and bone — underground from spring until fall. The tail freezes slowly while fermenting and taking on the flavor of the earth. Paying homage to their connection to the frozen sea, villagers eat the delicacy to celebrate the moment when the Arctic's ice touches shore. But climate change, with its more intense storms, melting permafrost and soil...