London: Though melting Antarctic ice sheets have become potent symbols of global warming, they may actually turn out to help in the battle against climate change and soaring carbon emissions.
This report by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the UNEP Regional Seas Programme explores national and regional efforts to develop representative networks of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and offers recommendations for strengthening the planning of such networks worldwide.
A radar instrument aboard a NASA spacecraft has detected large glaciers hidden under rocky debris that may be the vestiges of ice sheets that blanketed parts of Mars in a past ice age, scientists said on Thursday.
The polar regions have long been expected to warm strongly as a result of anthropogenic climate change, because of the positive feedbacks associated with melting ice and snow. Several studies have noted a rise in Arctic temperatures over recent decades but have not formally attributed the changes to human influence, owing to sparse observations and large natural variability.
The main ship in Japan's whaling fleet set out for the Antarctic on Monday for its first hunt in the region since limping home with just over half its planned catch in April following clashes with militant anti-whaling activists, environmentalist group Greenpeace said.
A city of brittle stars off the coast of New Zealand, an Antarctic expressway where octopuses ride along in a flow of extra salty water and a carpet of tiny crustaceans on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor are among the wonders discovered by researchers compiling a massive census of marine life.
