Statoil says the Aldous and Avaldsnes combined potential may represent the largest NCS discovery since the mid 1980s. Click to enlarge. Statoil has confirmed communication between the Aldous and Avaldsnes oil discoveries in the North Sea. (Earlier post.) In combination these discoveries may represent an oil structure of between 500... Read more →

ICESat measurements of winter multi-year ice cover in the Arctic Ocean between 2004 and 2008, along with the corresponding downward trend in overall winter sea ice volume, and switch in dominant ice type from multi-year ice to first-year ice. Credit: Ron Kwok, NASA/JPL. Click to enlarge. Arctic sea ice thinned... Read more →

A team of US researchers has found a significant increase in the amount of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean as well as a significant change in the distribution of fresh water, as compared with average winter values. Fresh water flowing into or out of the Arctic Ocean plays an... Read more →

Map of the assessment units (AUs) of the CARA is color-coded for mean estimated undiscovered oil. Only areas north of the Arctic Circle are included in the estimates. Black lines indicate AU boundaries. Source: USGS CARA. Click to enlarge. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has completed a geologically-based assessment of... Read more →

Summers in the Arctic may be nearly ice-free in as few as 30 years or even earlier, not at the end of the century as previously expected, according to a new study by a pair of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Washington.... Read more →

A pair of researchers from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space (GISS) and Columbia University have found that black carbon is responsible for 50%, or almost 1 °C of the total 1.9 °C increased Arctic warming from 1890 to 2007. The paper by Drew Shindell and Greg Faluvegi of Columbia,... Read more →