Antarctic Melting as Deep Ocean Heat Rises. By Larry O’Hanlon, Discovery News, 12/14/10. “Global warming is sneaky. For more than a century it has been hiding large amounts of excess heat in the world's deep seas. Now that heat is coming to the surface again in one of the worst possible places: Antarctica. New analyses of the heat content of the waters off Western Antarctic Peninsula are now showing a clear and exponential increase in warming waters undermining the sea ice, raising air temperatures, melting glaciers and wiping out entire penguin colonies. ‘In the area I work there is the highest increase in temperatures of anywhere on Earth,’ said physical oceanographer Doug Martinson of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Martinson has been collecting ocean water heat content data for more than 18 years at Palmer Island, on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula…

“Martinson and his colleagues looked not only at their very detailed and mapped water heat data from the last two decades, but compared them with sketchier data from the past and deep ocean heat content measurements worldwide. All show the same rising trend that is being seen in Antarctica. ‘When I saw that my jaw just dropped,’ said Martinson. The most dramatic rise has happened since 1960, he said. What the rising water heat means, he said, is that even if humanity got organized and soon stopped emitting greenhouse gases, there is already too much heat in the oceans to stop a lot of impacts -- like the melting of a huge amount of Antarctic ice.”

Arctic Shipping Will Hasten Ice Melt, Study Says. By Randy Boswell, Postmedia, 10/26/10. “Global shipping firms are not only taking advantage of melting ice in the Arctic Ocean -- they're actually helping to drive the meltdown that continues to unlock sea routes across the top of the world. And as a rapidly warming Arctic encourages more ship traffic through Canada's Northwest Passage and along other polar routes, the sooty emissions from passing freighters will significantly accelerate climate change in the region, according to a new Canadian-American study [Arctic Shipping. PDF, 16 pp] that, for the first time, predicts the potential impact of engine exhaust particles on the Arctic environment.”

2010 Tied (So Far) for Warmest on Record. By John Collins Rudolf, NYTimes, 10/18/10. “With more than two months to go, 2010 is on pace to tie 1998 as the warmest year in the historical record, according to an analysis of land and sea surface temperatures by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Signs of warming were evident in the opening of the Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage to shipping, the third straight year that these normally ice-choked waterways were extensively ice-free in the summer… Sea ice in the Arctic reached its third-lowest extent in the modern record this summer. Sea ice volume, which measures the thickness of ice, reached a record low this year, however, falling nearly 70% below the average of the last 30 years, according to the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington. In North America, warming was especially pronounced in Alaska, where researchers recently announced that the growing season for the state’s interior had expanded from 85 days in the early 20th century to 123 days today.”

Montana's Glacier National Park Will Soon be Glacier-Free. By Jessica Ellis, CNN, 10/7/10. “As recently as 100 years ago, Montana's Glacier National Park had more than 150 glaciers throughout its more than one million acres. In 2005 only 27 remained. Today the total is down to a just 25 and those that are left are mere remnants of their former frozen selves. With warmer temperatures and changes to the water cycle, scientists predict Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030. Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ecologist who works at the national park believes that even those estimates are too conservative and says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of their predicted demise. ‘The glaciers have been around for the last seven thousand years,’ he told CNN, ‘and if we are going to lose them in the next 10 or 20 years that is a pretty radical shift.’"

Biologist Tracks Walruses Forced Ashore as Ice Melts. By Annie Feidt, NPR, September 26, 2010. "Earlier this month, tens of thousands of walruses crowded onto a sandy stretch of beach on Alaska's northwest coast. The animals were forced to swim to shore after the Arctic Sea ice they usually live on disappeared from the Chukchi Sea. It's a phenomenon that was unheard of five years ago. Anthony Fischbach, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, is trying to get a handle on what the dramatic change in behavior could mean for the species long-term."

Ozone Hole Provide Temporary Reprieve for Adèlie Penguins. By Michael Todd, Miller-McCune, 9/28/10. "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times -- for penguins… Some colonies of Adèlie penguins, those living near Ross Island, are going to be near-term winners of how climate change affects the world's seventh continent. This will occur even as their peers on the Antarctic Peninsula 2,000 miles away face a punishing slog toward probable localized extinction… In the Ross Sea [which is as far south as one can go on the ocean], the hole in the ozone layer creates upper atmosphere cooling, which increases winds, which increases sea ice. [Penguin scientist] Grant Ballard calls it a 'giant ice generator,' and as long as temperatures remain above freezing, it will likely remain one. 'People expect the ice to be going away, and fast, but in the Ross Sea it isn't -- yet. However, we do expect to in 20 years, or it could be 40 years, depending on which models you look at, we expect we'll start seeing a decline in sea ice again, in the Ross Sea.'… Grant Ballard's mentor, the renowned penguin expert David G. Ainley, has dubbed Adèlies the 'bellwether of climate change,' in part because they are completely dependent on the continued existence of sea ice and in part because they have been well studied and so provide a good baseline for observing change.

"Ballard and the other researchers are providing information to a member of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources [PDF, 23 pp], the one organization with the statutory authority to create non-fishing areas off Antarctica. The convention is planning to examine that possibility in the spring. The researchers have also provided information to the nongovernmental organization the Antarctica and South Ocean Coalition, which while it hasn't taken a stand on a marine protected area for the Ross Sea it is clearly pro-conservation, as the video, The Ross Sea, Antarctica, demonstrates. While Ballard isn't taking a public position on what the convention should do, because the Antarctic is pretty much the last accessible place on Earth that hasn't been completely altered by humanity, he is concerned about a potential loss that echoes beyond Adèlie colonies. 'From a scientific perspective, it's a tragedy to lose this place, last reference point.' Ballard laments. 'From a cultural perspective, a human value perspective, I think people can understand it's probably not a good idea to destroy every ecosystem on the planet.'"

The World's Two Great Ice Sheets Are Melting Faster Than Scientists Thought Possible. By Ben Wallace-Wells, Rolling Stone, September 22, 2010, in-depth article. "Until a few years ago, scientists thought of the ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland as changing only imperceptibly, on the time scale of centuries. But as the planet has warmed, they have come to see the ice as far more volatile and nimble. The ice sheets no longer seem static; they are complicated dams that help hold back entire continents."

Shipping Companies Eye Arctic Northeast Passage. By Pierre-Henry Deshayes, AFP, September 3, 2010. "Ship owners are showing growing interest in a fabled trade route to Asia which climate change is beginning to open up at last as polar ice recedes. On Saturday the first non-Russian vessel to make an intercontinental commercial voyage through the Arctic Northeast passage will set sail from Norway for China. The route is thousands of kilometers (miles) shorter than traditional passages, promising to reduce travel time dramatically, along with fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions… Opting for the northern route will also allow ships to avoid the danger of pirates and other attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean... Due to global warming, scientists say they expect the Arctic ice cover to completely disappear during the summer months in coming decades… But for the foreseeable future, the northern route remains a luxury that will be afforded only to ice-class ships, with reinforced hulls, like the Nordic Barents."

Summit of Japan's Mt. Fuji Thawing at Quickening Pace. By Yumi Nakayama, Asahi Shimbun, September 10, 2010. "The permafrost near the summit of 3,776-meter Mount Fuji has been thawing in recent decades at a pace exceeding expectations, researchers said. The findings were made in joint research by Shizuoka University and the National Institute of Polar Research, raising concerns about the impact on vegetation."

Arctic Ice at Third Lowest Level. By Justin Gillis, NYTimes, September 17, 2010. "This week the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado issued a preliminary estimate of Arctic sea-ice volume for the year. The numbers will not become final until October, but the early calculation is that the summer minimum extent for Arctic sea ice hit its third-lowest level in the modern era, a bit above 2008 and somewhat above the record low of 2007."

Shipping Companies Eye Arctic Northeast Passage. By Pierre-Henry Deshayes, AFP, September 4, 2010. "Shipowners are showing growing interest in a fabled trade route to Asia which climate change is beginning to open up at last as polar ice recedes. On Saturday the first non-Russian vessel to make an intercontinental commercial voyage through the Arctic Northeast passage will set sail from Norway for China. The route is thousands of kilometres (miles) shorter than traditional passages, promising to reduce travel time dramatically, along with fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions… Opting for the northern route will also allow ships to avoid the danger of pirates and other attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean... Due to global warming, scientists say they expect the Arctic ice cover to completely disappear during the summer months in coming decades… But for the foreseeable future, the northern route remains a luxury that will be afforded only to ice-class ships, with reinforced hulls, like the Nordic Barents."

Arctic Ice Storm Forces Protesters Off Oil Rig. AP, September 2, 2010. "Greenpeace says four activists have been arrested after an Arctic ice storm forced them to leave an oil rig off western Greenland where they had been squatting for two days. The organization said Thursday police were waiting for the activists on the deck of the Stena Don rig, when they climbed up. The activists had been suspended under the rig since Tuesday with rock-climbing equipment. The organization is protesting deep-water oil drilling. Scottish Cairn Energy PLC said last week it had discovered an undisclosed amount of natural gas in the area."

Release of Ice-Trapped Pollutants Could Make Polar Bears' Diets Evermore Toxic. Deutsche Welle, August 20, 2010. "The iconic symbol of the Arctic -- the polar bear -- is under threat from the twin challenges of climate change and lingering chemical pollutants, such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which are not breaking down in the region's cold waters. A comprehensive review of research on polar wildlife published recently in the journal Science of The Total Environment has concluded that the retreat of sea ice cover in the Arctic as a result of climate change could increase the exposure of species such as polar bears to a range of man-made chemical compounds, including flame retardants and substances used to harden plastics. Scientists believe that lingering pollutants, locked up in the polar ice for decades, could be released into the ocean as the ice cover retreats."

The Ice is Missing in Canadian Arctic Harbor. By Don Martin, Toronto National Post, Aug. 21, 2010. "They cut short Canada Day celebrations here this year. It was simply too hot to play outdoors. That might not be unusual in the humidity soaking some Canadian cities this summer, but tiny Sachs Harbour clings to a shoreline more than 500 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Until 10 years ago, the ocean was clogged with ice thick enough to walk across in late June. Strange things are happening 'neath the midnight sun these days... 'We've seen hummingbirds and wasps and bumblebees,' adds Mervin Gruben, Mayor of Tuktoyaktuk. 'They're catching salmon and squid. I've never ever seen those up here in my life. It's freaky.'"

World's Highest Island Glacier Vanishing. By Brett Israel, OurAmazingPlanet, August 16, 2010. "Puncak Jaya [in Papua, Indonesia] is the Earth's highest island peak and the tallest mountain between the Andes and the Himalayas at 16,000 feet (4,884 meters)... The glaciologists who drilled through the cap... to collect data on climate change said the ice field could vanish within the next few years."

Borehole Network Confirms Permafrost Is Thawing Worldwide. By Victoria Barber, Anchorage Arctic Sounder, August 13, 2010. "An expanded network of boreholes across the northern hemisphere has confirmed that permafrost throughout polar and sub-polar regions is thawing, say scientists who studied the topic during International Polar Year. 'You look at a whole hemisphere and see the patterns everywhere,' said Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor with the snow, ice and permafrost group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and lead author of a paper [PDF, 11 pps] documenting the research. Romanovsky and his colleagues launched a campaign to improve the global network of boreholes for International Polar Year, a science program focused on the Arctic and Antarctic that ran from 2007 to 2009… Using information collected from 575 boreholes located throughout North America, Russia and the Nordic region, researchers found that permafrost temperatures during the International Polar Year were as much as 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than they were 20 or 30 years ago."

Greenland's Giant Island of Ice Could Threaten Offshore Platforms. By Karl Ritter, AP, August 8, 2010. "It's been a summer of near Biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires raging in Russia and floods claiming lives across Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked -- giving birth to the biggest Arctic ice island in half-century -- may symbolize a warming world like no other... Few images can capture the world's climate fears like a 100 square mile (260 sq. kilometre) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland's vast ice sheet, a reservoir of freshwater that if it collapsed would raise global sea levels by a devastating 20 feet (6 metres)... Greenland's glaciers pump out thousands of icebergs into Arctic waters every year, but scientists say this is the biggest in the northern hemisphere since 1962. It stores enough freshwater to keep the Hudson River flowing for more than two years... Researchers are in a scramble to plot the trajectory of the floating ice shelf, which is drifting toward the Nares Strait separating Greenland's northwestern coast and Canada's Ellsemere Island. If it makes it into the strait before the winter freeze -- due to start next month -- it would likely be carried south by ocean currents, hugging Canada's east coast until it enters waters busy with oil exploration and shipping off Newfoundland."

Tracking the Himalaya's Melting Glaciers. By David Breashears, YaleEnviro360, July 15, 2010. "For those who know the Himalaya well -- I have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest five times in the past three decades -- the warming of this great mountain chain is something that we have come to experience personally. The Sherpas who live atop 'the roof of the world' and the climberswho often return are acutely aware of how much temperatures have risen at high altitudes in recent years, and how extensively the snow and ice on the massive Himalayan glaciers has thinned and retreated. But it wasn't until 2007, when I went back to Everest as part of a documentary for the PBS series, Frontline, that I fully grasped the magnitude of the melting in this region, often called 'The Third Pole' because of the massive volumes of ice in the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau.

"Trekking in Tibet, not far from the northern slope of Mount Everest, I carried with me a black-and-white photograph taken by the great English mountaineer, George L. Mallory, in 1921. It showed the ice-encrusted north face of Everest and, below it, the great river of ice known as the Main Rongbuk Glacier, flowing in a sweeping, S-shaped curve down a broad, stony valley. It was at that moment I decided to proceed with the project whose results are visible in the accompanying photographs. The Glacier Research Imaging Project, which I helped found, has retraced the steps of some of the world's greatest mountain photographers as they took pictures -- many of them not previously published or displayed -- over the past 110 years across the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. I then returned to those same vantage points and took photographs that bear witness to the rapid warming of the Himalaya and the swift retreat of its glaciers. The result is an exhibition -- 'Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya' - a collaboration with the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations and now on display at the Asia Society Museum in New York through Aug. 15. These then-and-now pictures have a powerful effect on the viewer, one that I hope will bring home the reality -- and serious consequences -- of global warming."

Measuring the Melting Arctic Sea Ice. By Bruce Dorminey, Miller-McCune/McClatchy Newspapers, July 4, 2010. “While the world’s eyes focus on the catastrophe in the Gulf, climatologists are tracking a decades-old cataclysm at the top of the world -- dwindling Arctic sea ice. This year is projected to surpass 2007’s summer sea ice minimum... ‘Where Arctic ice used to be 3- to 5-meters thick in most places, now it’s tough to find ice that’s over 3-meters thick,’explained Ignatius Rigor, a climatologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. ‘Most of the Arctic is covered by 2-year-old ice. It used to be covered by ice that was 30 years old.’ A decade of warmer than normal Arctic air temperatures, along with warmer ocean waters moving their way north, are thought to be responsible... Projections call for the Arctic Ocean to become open water, at least in summer, as early as 2040... CryoSat-2, a $170 million ice-measuring polar satellite launched by the European Space Agency in April, will devote a large part of its mission to helping climate researchers understand the how and why of Arctic climate change. Specifically, CryoSat will measure the rate at which the thickness of Arctic sea ice changes over time.”

Shrinking Himalayan Glaciers Could Impact Some Watersheds More than Others. By Michael Casey, June 11, 2010. “Nearly 60 million people living around the Himalayas will suffer food shortages in the coming decades as glaciers shrink and the water sources for crops dry up, a study said Thursday. But Dutch scientists writing in the journal Science concluded the impact would be much less than previously estimated a few years ago by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The U.N. report in 2007 warned that hundred of millions of people were at risk from disappearing glaciers. The reason for the discrepancy, scientists said, is that some basins surrounding the Himalayas depend more on rainfall than melting glaciers for their water sources. Those that do count heavily on glaciers like the Indus, Ganges and Brahamaputra basins in South Asia could see their water supplies decline by as much as 19.6 percent by 2050. China's Yellow River basin, in contrast, would see a 9.5 percent increase precipitation as monsoon patterns change due to the changing climate.”