Antarctica & Arctic

"The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date."

"A new study casts doubt on the effectiveness of what is considered a state-of-the-art tool to help industry avoid injuring or disturbing polar bears by detecting their dens in the snow. Over more than a decade on the North Slope of Alaska, the study found, oil companies located fewer than half of the known dens of maternal bears and their infant cubs using airborne instruments called forward-looking infrared, or FLIR, cameras."

"Antarctica, the coldest, windiest and driest continent on Earth, set a record high temperature on Thursday, underscoring the global warming trend, researchers said."

"A massive iceberg with the robotic sounding name D28 has separated in recent days from an ice shelf in Antarctica, prompting both awe and concern around the world. Measuring 610 square miles, D28 is slightly larger than Oahu, Hawaii, and some are worried that its fracture from the Amery Ice Shelf is a signal of climate change."

"An E&E News reporter spends six weeks on an icebreaker with scientists who are unraveling the mysteries of the Arctic."

"They arrived on Sunday in parkas and ski hats, hiking across the rocky terrain where Iceland’s Okjokull glacier once flourished. Today it is a watery grave, which scientists and politicians say is the site of the nation’s first glacier lost to climate change."

"ABOARD A NASA RESEARCH PLANE OVER GREENLAND — The fields of rippling ice 500 feet below the NASA plane give way to the blue-green of water dotted with irregular chunks of bleached-white ice, some the size of battleships, some as tall as 15-story buildings."

"Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion."