More worrying news on the ice front. A study based on the analysis of millions of NASA satellite laser images has indicated that coastal ice in Greenland and Antarctica is thinning more extensively than expected. The biggest loss of ice is caused by glaciers speeding up when they flow into the sea, according to scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Bristol University.
via blogs.dw-world.de

One of the most interesting aspects of the arctic hockey stick is that until the recent and sizeable man-made warming, arctic temperatures weren’t flat, they were actually declining. This is no surprise at all, because orbital factors have a strong influence on polar temperature; in fact they’re the trigger for ice ages. It turns out that the orbital changes over the last 10,000 years have had a cooling influence on the arctic.

via tamino

According to the World Wildlife Federation, the Arctic governments and industry in the Arctic are no more prepared today for a major oil spill than they were 20 years ago.

The new U.S. policy, announced last week by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as a "precautionary" measure pending further study of the rapidly changing polar environment, covers a huge swath of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska and running east to the U.S.-Canada maritime boundary — including a contentious, 11,500-sq.-km. expanse of water that both countries claim.