Latest Polar ice cap Stories

[ Watch the Video: Mars Dry Ice and Dunes ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study, led by the Planetary Science Institute's Senior Scientists Candice Hansen, shows that the spring thaw on Mars leads to a variety of geologic changes on the planet's surface. Frozen carbon dioxide, also known as dry ice, is deposited on the dunes surrounding the north pole's permanent water ice polar cap. In the spring, as it begins to sublimate, or change directly from a...

ESA ESA joined international delegates in Doha, Qatar, to discuss how satellite observations show our planet’s most sensitive areas reacting to climate change – and how this information is useful to the people living there. After almost two weeks of talks and negotiations, the UN Climate Change Conference has entered its final phase, when countries are represented mainly by their Ministers of Environment. During the first week of the ‘COP 18’ Conference of the Parties, ESA...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As average global temperatures rise, climatologists are scrambling to see how this development might affect polar ice sheet melt, which could potentially result in a dangerous rise in sea levels. In studying the polar ice sheets around Antarctica, a group of British researchers has found that the shape of water channels beneath the ice can have a strong effect on ice behavior, temporarily hiding indications of its retreat. A report...

PASADENA, Calif., Sept. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) data have given scientists the clearest evidence yet of carbon dioxide snowfalls on Mars. This reveals the only known example of carbon dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Frozen carbon dioxide, better known as "dry ice," requires temperatures of about minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 Celsius), which...

The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began. NASA and NSIDC scientists will host a media teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT, today, to discuss this new record low for summertime Arctic sea ice cover. The extent of Arctic sea ice...

GREENBELT, Md., Aug. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) NASA and NSIDC scientists will host a media...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to hit its lowest next week and then keep on shrinking. Scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center say data shows that the sea ice coverage is tracking below the previous record low, set in 2007. Arctic sea ice extent during the first two weeks of August continues to track below the 2007 record low daily ice extents. As of August 13, ice extent is already among the four lowest...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Despite the rapid thaw of the Greenland Ice Sheet, scientists are still far from even being able to predict its disappearance. Recent research conducted by an international team of scientists provided evidence that this is not the first time in modern history that the ice sheet has receded and then stabilized again. Research and news reports surrounding the melting of polar and sub-polar ice often has a doom and gloom tone, but the...

Today the U.S. National Research Council released a synthesis of reports from thousands of scientists in 60 countries who took part in the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08, the first in over 50 years to offer a benchmark for environmental conditions and new discoveries in the polar regions. University of Massachusetts Amherst geosciences researcher and expert in the paleoclimate of the Arctic, Julie Brigham-Grette, co-chaired the NRC report, "Lessons and Legacies of the IPY 2007-08"...

GREENBELT, Md., March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Researchers and flight crew with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in polar ice, began another season of science activity with the start of the 2012 Arctic campaign on March 13. From mid-March through mid-May, a modified P-3 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will conduct daily missions out of Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland --with one flight to Fairbanks, Alaska...