arctic

"Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns for the safety of USPS employees,55 USPS announced Wednesday morning," the Postal Service is suspending delivery Jan.

Earlier this year, British explorer Hadow and his team trekked for three months across the frozen Arctic Ocean, taking measurements and recording observations about the ice.

Way up north in the Canadian Arctic, seabirds are picking up dangerous chemicals in the ocean and delivering them to ponds near where the birds live.

Some 10,000 pairs of the birds, called fulmars, a kind of Arctic seabird, make their nests on Devon Island, north at the Arctic circle.

Previously, scientists noticed pollutants arriving in the Arctic with the wind.

Brittleness remains a problem when building steel structures in cold conditions, such as oil rigs in the Arctic.

But this year, the Arctic is experiencing much higher temperatures.

Cambridge scientist Peter Wadhams who's been measuring and monitoring the Arctic since 1971, says the decline is irreversible.

During the Arctic winter from October to March, the average temperature in the frozen north typically hovers around minus 20degrees Celsius.

Earlier this year, British explorer Hadow and his team trekked for three months across the frozen Arctic Ocean, taking measurements and recording observations about the ice.

Indeed, sea ice cover in the Arctic is melting faster than expected.

Martin Sommerkorn runs the Arctic program for the environmental charity the World wildlife Fund.

The Arctic sea ice holds a central position in the Earth's climate system and it's deteriorating faster than expected.

This is troubling as climbing Arctic temperatures combined with rapid sea ice loss are creating a new type of climate feedback loop, which could accelerate Arctic warming.

Weather conditions that drive this bizarre temperature surge have visited the Arctic before.

We're looking at roughly 80 percent loss of ice cover on the Arctic Ocean in 10 years, roughly 10 years, and 100 percent loss in nearly 20 years.

without those masses of cooling sea ice, warm air brought to the Arctic can penetrate further inland than it ever did before.

But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener.

Finally you climb into an Arctic-like zone with permanent snow and the glaciers that may soon disappear.

The polar bear is found in the Arctic circle and some big land masses as far south as Newfoundland.

While they are rare north of 88°, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far south as James Bay in Canada.