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Preventing Overfishing in the Arctic

The Atlantic A consortium of countries are meeting in Iceland, where they hope to strike a deal that protects the newly accessible ecosystem The Arctic Ocean has long been the least accessible of the world’s major oceans. But as climate change warms the Arctic twice as fast as anywhere else, the thick sea ice that once made it so forbidding is now beating a hasty retreat. Since 1979, when scientists began using satellites to track changes in the Arctic sea-ice expanse, its average summertime volume has dropped 75 percent from 4,000 cubic miles to 1,000 cubic miles. By September, the … Read more…

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Arctic snow cover shows sharp decline

Earlier spring could spell trouble for permafrost Arctic snow is fading fast. June snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has dropped by almost 18% per decade during the past 30 years, according to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters1. The drop in snow extent will lower the amount of sunlight reflected away from the planet — a process that has a cooling effect — by exposing darker and less reflective soil, shrubs and trees, which absorb solar radiation and re-emit the heat into the atmosphere. The change also stands to warm the permafrost, alter the timing of spring runoff into … Read more…

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Scientists call for no-fishing zone in Arctic

Nature Thousands of scientists from 67 countries have called for an international agreement to close the Arctic high seas to commercial fishing until research reveals more about the freshly exposed waters. Recent Arctic sea-ice retreat during the summer months has opened up some of the waters that fall outside of the exclusive economic zones of the nations that circle the polar ocean. In all, more than 2.8 million square kilometres make up these international waters, which some scientists say could be ice free during summer months within 10–15 years. Although industrial fishing hasn’t yet occurred in the northernmost part of … Read more…

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US polar bears mark their territory

More than two years after Alaskan polar bears were given a protection status of “threatened species” by the US Endangered Species Act, the Obama administration set aside on Wednesday 24 November 484,330 sq kilometres — twice the size of the UK — in Alaska as “critical habitat”. Almost all of the area is offshore sea ice habitat — where polar bears spend most of their time hunting seals, breeding and travelling—in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s northern coast. It also includes on-shore barrier islands and land used for making dens. About 4,800 polar bears ramble along Alaska’s ice and … Read more…