With climate change, the Arctic tundra is likely to become drier. Lakes may shrink in size and smaller lakes may even disappear according to a new Dartmouth study. In western Greenland, Kangerlussuaq experienced a 28 percent ...
Environment
May 23, 2019
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31
Climate change and its impacts threaten the health of Arctic freshwater ecosystems, with continued warming pushing cold-water species unique to the Arctic—such as the Arctic char—to the brink of regional loss. In addition, ...
Environment
May 22, 2019
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6
Dallas businessman Victor Vescovo became the deepest diving human in history when his Five Deeps Expedition reached the bottom of the Pacific Ocean's Challenger Deep on April 28.
Earth Sciences
May 14, 2019
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12
Did you know that there are forests in the Arctic?
Plants & Animals
May 14, 2019
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13
A spy, a far away visitor or a fugitive on the run? A mysterious Beluga whale, caught wearing a suspicious harness, has ignited the imaginations of Norwegians who have yet to receive answers.
Ecology
May 03, 2019
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9
Following four expeditions in the Arctic Ocean and satellite data analysis, a team of Russian climate scientists featuring MIPT researchers described the ocean's "seasonal memory." This refers to a mechanism explaining how ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 30, 2019
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59
An international team of researchers has combined archaeological, historical and linguistic data with genetic information from over 700 newly analyzed individuals to construct a more detailed picture of the history of inner ...
Evolution
Apr 29, 2019
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123
We all know the amazing job that bees and birds, as pollinators, do for the planet. But have you heard about the humble copepod?
Environment
Apr 25, 2019
0
12
An international team has conducted the first-ever global survey of the ecological diversity of viruses in the oceans during expeditions aboard a single sailboat, the Tara. They identified nearly 200,000 marine viral species, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 25, 2019
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360
The early arrival of spring in parts of the Arctic is driven by winter snow melting sooner than in previous decades and by rising temperatures, research suggests.
Environment
Apr 25, 2019
3
265
The Arctic (pronounced /ˈɑrktɪk/ or /ˈɑrtɪk/) is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean (which overlies the North Pole) and parts of Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Russia, the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
The word Arctic comes from the Greek αρκτικός (arktikos), "near the Bear, arctic, northern" and that from the word άρκτος (arktos), which means bear. The name refers either to the constellation Ursa Major, the "Great Bear", which is prominent in the northern portion of the celestial sphere, or to the constellation Ursa Minor, the "Little Bear", which contains Polaris, the Pole Star, also known as the North Star.[citation needed]
The Arctic region can be defined as the area north of the Arctic Circle (66° 33’N), which is the approximate limit of the midnight sun and the polar night. Alternatively, it can be defined as the region where the average temperature for the warmest month (July) is below 10 °C (50 °F); the northernmost tree line roughly follows the isotherm at the boundary of this region. Socially and politically, the Arctic region includes the northern territories of the eight Arctic states, including Sapmi, although by natural science definitions much of this territory is considered subarctic.
The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean (which is sometimes considered to be a northern arm of the Atlantic Ocean) surrounded by treeless permafrost. In recent years the extent of the sea ice has declined. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice, zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants, and human societies.
The Arctic region is a unique area among Earth's ecosystems. The cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold and extreme conditions.
Due to the poleward migration of the planet's isotherms (about 35 miles per decade during the past 30 years as a consequence of global warming), the Arctic region (as defined by tree line and temperature) is currently shrinking. Perhaps the most spectacular result of Arctic shrinkage is sea ice loss. There is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the analyzed models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
