| |
|
NCE UPDATE 3 December 2008 Article Headlines |
| Announcements |
| 1 | National Snow and Ice Data Center Glacier Photograph Collection Doubles; 10,000 Images Now Available - December 1, 2008 The online National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Glacier Photograph Collection has doubled in size since January 2008, with more than 10,000 high-resolution photographs of glaciers worldwide available for free. The National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder (NSIDC/WDC) houses many photographic prints of glaciers, taken both from the air and from the ground. These photographs constitute an important historical record, as well as a data collection of interest to those studying the response of glaciers to climate change. NSIDC is partnering with the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) and the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) to digitize selected photographs and to make them available through a searchable interface. These photographs comprise the Glacier Photograph Collection. More than 4,000 glacier photographs are online, and most of these glaciers are in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Greenland. |
| 2 | Available on-line: Environment Canada's 'Frequently Asked Questions About the Science of Climate Change - 2008 Update. This report addresses questions often posed by the public, and arguments frequently raised by skeptics, about the science of climate change. This 2008 edition has been updated to reflect current scientific understanding, in particular, the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. This document is intended primarily for those with some prior knowledge of the climate change issue, although provision of both a simple response and a more technical explanation for each question will make this document useful for a wide audience. Hard copies are not yet available at this time but the full report can be downloaded from this link. |
| 3 | International Arctic Change 2008 Conference: Quebec City 9-12, December 2008. Registration: On-line registration for the conference is now available on the Arctic Change 2008 website. |
|
| Articles |
|
1 Sixth Arctic caribou herd in rapid decline A new study of one of Canada's largest caribou herds seems to confirm fears that, like other herds in the western Arctic, it is suffering a steep and mysterious population decline. The massive Beverly herd, which roams the tundra from northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan well into the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, once numbered about 276,000. But a just-released survey suggests the number of caribou cows on the herd's calving grounds has fallen by 98 per cent over the past 14 years. Read more at www.theglobeandmail.com |
|
2 Students on ice headed for Antarctica Ausuittuq/Grise Fiord - Two young men from Grise Fiord will spend their Christmas holidays clear on the other side of the globe. Grade 11 students Terry Noah and Jason Qaapik will travel to Antarctica for a two-week educational expedition as part of Students on Ice. Read more at www.nnsl.com |
|
3 Soot darkens ice, stokes runaway Arctic melt: study By Alister Doyle The experts said the fight against warming in the Arctic should be re-directed to focus more on cutting the industrial pollution from soot, ozone and methane in Europe, North America and Russia to try to prevent the ice disappearing. Read more at www.reuters.com |
|
4 Accelerated Melting Of Continental Icepacks Is Major Reason For Rise In Sea Level Between 2003 And 2008 Researchers at the Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (1) (CNRS/Université Toulouse 3/CNES/IRD) and at a subsidiary of CNES (CLS) (2) have discovered that the accelerated melting of continental icepacks is the major reason for the rise in sea level over the 2003 to 2008 period, something which has minimized the effect of thermal expansion of seawater. Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
|
5 North Atlantic cold-water sink returns to life Scientists have found evidence that convective mixing in the North Atlantic, a mechanism that fuels ocean circulation and affects Earth's climate, has returned after a decade of near stagnation – thanks, perhaps, to a dramatic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic during the summer of 2007. Read more at www.nature.com |
|
6 Climate change gathers steam, say scientists PARIS (AFP) – Earth's climate appears to be changing more quickly and deeply than a benchmark UN report for policymakers predicted, top scientists said ahead of international climate talks starting Monday in Poland. Read more at www.news.yahoo.com |
7 Carbon is forever After our fossil fuel blow-out, how long will the CO2 hangover last? And what about the global fever that comes along with it? These sound like simple questions, but the answers are complex — and not well understood or appreciated outside a small group of climate scientists. Popular books on climate change — even those written by scientists — if they mention the lifetime of CO2 at all, typically say it lasts "a century or more"1 or "more than a hundred years". Read more at www.nature.com |
The next update from the Northern Climate ExChange will be sent out Wednesday, December 10, 2008 |
 |