Today's Earth Looks a lot Like it Did 115,000 Years Ago. All We're Missing is Massive Sea Level Rise. Some 115,000 years ago, homo sapiens were still living in bands of hunter gatherers, largely confined to Africa. We still shared the globe with the Neanderthals, although it's not clear we had met them yet. And though these various hominids didn't know it, the Earth was coming to the end of a major warm period. It was one that's quite close to our current climate, but with one major discrepancy - seas at the time were 20 to 30 feet higher. The Washington Post

 

Mapping Human Impact on the North with Canada's Arctic Marine Atlas. Canada's Arctic is in the midst of unprecedented ecological change and industrial interest that will have a direct impact on its future and that of all its inhabitants, according to Canada's Arctic Marine Atlas, a new resource created by conservation group Oceans North in partnership with World Wildlife Fund Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada. The 122-page atlas, published in English, French and Inuktut, examines the relationship between northern species and human activity, covering topics such as sea ice change, Inuit land claims and place names, industrial and commercial shipping and wildlife habitat ranges. Canadian Geographic

 

So Far, Seals are Adapting to Shrinking Sea Ice. Ice seals thought to be most affected by the disappearance of arctic sea ice seem to be doing well, according to data presented at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium last week. The two species of ice seals that were declared "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act are, so far, doing well with less sea ice. "We're seeing fat seals," said Lori Quakenbush, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Arctic Marine Mammal Program. Alaska Public Radio

 

Diffusing the Methane Bomb: We Can Still Make a Difference. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, causing the carbon containing permafrost that has been frozen for tens or hundreds of thousands of years to thaw and release methane into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global warming. A new study suggests that it is still possible to neutralize this threat. Science Daily

 

Age-old Arctic Plants Uncovered by Retreating Glaciers. Glaciers melting rapidly on Baffin Island are uncovering Arctic landscapes not seen in over 40,000 years-and possibly much longer. That's according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, by a group of American scientists who spent three summers surveying ice caps on eastern Baffin Island around the Cumberland Peninsula. Nunatsiaq Online