Researchers Say Less Arctic Sea Ice Means More Precipitation. The Arctic is seeing more precipitation as sea ice diminishes from climate warming, according to a research paper by U.S. and Canada scientists. The study by three Dartmouth College researchers and one from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, concludes the effects from a changed hydrologic cycle is a potential major component of climate change that could create uncertainty in climate predictions. They also say it's too soon to tell whether more precipitation will slow warming or add to it. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Greenhouse Gas Methane Seeps from Arctic Ice Even in the Depths of Winter. It turns out that the amount of methane gas escaping from the Arctic each year is far higher than expected. Scientists have found that during the long, cold period each winter, more methane is entering the atmosphere than thought. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that intensifies atmospheric warming and is about 25 times more potent per molecule than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. Methane trapped in the Arctic tundra comes primarily from microbial decomposition of organic matter in soil that thaws seasonally. This methane naturally seeps out of the soil over the course of the year, but scientists worry that climate change could lead to the release of even larger emissions from organic matter that is currently stabilized in a deep, frozen soil layer called permafrost. Science World Report

 

Do People Who Grow Up in the Arctic See Better in the Dark? People who live north of the Arctic Circle experience two months each year with no direct sunlight. During the dark winters, the only natural illumination people experience is twilight, which tends to have a bluish color. So in 2007, cognitive neuropsychology specialist Bruno Laeng set out to see how this might affect the vision of these northernmost inhabitants. Laeng and his colleagues gathered about 250 people, mostly undergraduates from the Arctic University of Norway (where Laeng, now at the University of Oslo, was a professor at the time), and split them into two groups: those who were born above the Arctic Circle and those born below it. Both groups took a test measuring color discrimination, in which they had to arrange more than 85 color tabs according to the progression in their hues. Popular Science

 

U of C Researchers Study Impact of Climate Change on Arctic Wildlife. Two University of Calgary scientists are looking at how Arctic animals such as muskoxen and caribou are adapting to climate change by studying parasites in a herd of reindeer closer to home. Susan Kutz, an associate professor in the U of C's faculty of veterinary medicine, has been researching the impacts of climate change on the interactions between Arctic wildlife and their pathogens. Calgary Herald

 

US Senate Advances Arctic Efforts at Port Clarence. Port Clarence is one small step closer to serving as the nation's Arctic deep draft port. In a press release from Friday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced the senate passed the Point Spencer Land Conveyance Act. Murkowski said the act would "streamline future infrastructure development and potential uses of Point Spencer." Point Spencer is the spit of land that shield's Port Clarence Bay from the Bering Sea. The natural deep water port is about 120 nautical miles northwest of Nome. Alaska Public Radio