Arctic Ocean News

Andres Peña Castro and his team didn’t set out to track sea ice. Their original plan was to quantify the interactions between ocean, earth and atmosphere to be able to…

How had we missed this until now? An undersea mountain as tall as three Eiffel Towers. DDT contamination spread across an area of the seabed as large as San Francisco.…

A population of bowhead whales living in the western Arctic has long followed the same migration patterns. But new research suggests that climate change and the subsequent melting of sea…

Norway is moving forward with plans to mine its continental shelf to procure minerals critical for renewable energy technologies. However, some scientists, members of civil society and even industry leaders…

New research finds that a record Arctic sea ice melt season in 2007 initiated a “regime shift” to thinner, more transient ice that may be “irreversible”; another study shows that atmospheric rivers from the south are warming the Arctic in winter.

More than half of known species of coral reef sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, according to new research that underscores the urgent need for improved regional fisheries and…

As Arctic sea ice begins melting out fully in summer, the frequency of strong El Niños could increase by 35% by century's end, causing extreme weather events to increase, says recent modeling study.

Sea ice extent didn’t reach record lows this summer, but air temps over Greenland and ocean temps in some Arctic seas were extraordinarily high. Polar warming also likely continues influencing global extreme weather events, scientists say.

Narwhals are chaotic. At least, that’s what researchers thought until they developed a new math-based method to detect patterns in their seemingly irregular movements. Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are known as…

In the Davis Strait between Greenland and Canada’s Baffin Island, where only the faintest rays of sunlight penetrate, swim strange-looking flat fish with both eyes on the right side of…

Arctic sea ice extent continued its trending decline in winter 2022, while the Antarctic saw a record low summer minimum extent. Both regions also saw extraordinarily high temperatures for this time of year.

Americans love their polar bears. The largest land carnivores in the world, these massive, powerful beasts are fierce, fearless and very much threatened. It’s the threatened aspect of their story…

Though September sea ice extent appeared to offer a short-term recovery this fall, “that’s not the full story,” says one Arctic scientist, with low ice concentration seen in 2021, and lack of multiyear ice setting a new record.

Researchers are seeking to pinpoint climate change “tipping points,” but defining what that means exactly, when it will come, and what makes it happen, is unimaginably difficult when faced with the chaotic complexities of a vast Earth biome.

Sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record for this time of year, while new studies find Arctic coastal ice may be receding 70-110% faster than thought, winter ice is failing to regrow fully, and last multi-year ice refuge is under assault.

Sit on a beach and watch the waves. If powered by a storm, the waves may chew away at the beach, depositing sediment in an underwater sand bar that actually…

It started in October 2017. A swarm of microscopic algae called Karenia brevis amassed in the waters off Florida’s southwest coast, turning the ocean a rust-red hue. The algae, which…

Sea sponges don’t move. At least, that’s what a lot of people used to think about these aquatic invertebrates. But a new study has upended this assumption, and pushed and…

Polar phytoplankton, fish, seabirds and mammals are increasingly threatened by global warming, which is destabilizing Arctic ecosystems, even as southern species move northward — will the imbalanced biome collapse?

From the eye of a satellite, the ocean is streaked with smoky white lines that flow and twist like scribbled handwriting across the surface. But these lines aren’t naturally occurring…

New research finds that ice in both polar regions, and especially sea ice, is disappearing at a quickening rate, while in the Arctic the last stronghold of multiyear ice is under assault from warming.

It is a dark, stormy night in the South Atlantic. Coastal radar picks up a boat heading out towards the edge of a country’s 200-mile limit of jurisdiction. The on-board…

Jana Winderen finds it hard to get away from human noise. As a sound artist, she’s traveled to some remote parts of the world — from the Barents Sea to…

The Arctic is setting records for low sea ice extent for this time of year, with the 2020 refreeze now 500,000+ square kilometers behind a record set in 2019 — a sign the region may be entering a new climate regime.

2020 didn’t eclipse all-time record-holder 2012, but it came pretty close; also, the Arctic’s growing heat is likely intensifying Asia’s extreme weather, while waters just beneath the ice are getting increasingly warm.

Sharks are the stewards of coral reef systems. As apex predators, they pick off sick and weak fish, leaving the stronger ones to reproduce, which helps maintain the health and…

Temps as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Siberia have triggered record Arctic sea ice melt, raging wildfires, permafrost thaw, and an Arctic oil spill.

Sail 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers, from any coastline, and you’ll enter a region called the “high seas,” beyond the control of any country. While many people never get…

April and May saw record intense Arctic heat. Now some scientists are asking whether an absence of industrial sulfate aerosol pollutants, which reflect solar energy, could be the cause.

For seabirds, an Arctic Ocean with less sea ice could provide some tantalizing alternatives to the long-haul flights that some undertake each year. In a recent study, ecologist Manon Clairbaux…