Underwater archaeologists from NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program identified the wrecks of two whaling ships in the Chukchi Sea this week. The two vessels were lost in the infamous 1871 whaling season, when ice floes crushed 33 ships. The diminished sea ice cover in the area, a symptom of climate change, has allowed divers to explore …
Read more “Wrecks of 19th Century Whaling Ships Discovered off Alaska’s Arctic Coast”
My latest story, “250-Year-Old Eyewitness Accounts of Icier Arctic Attest to Loss of Sea Ice,” has just been posted on Scientific American‘s website. This marks my debut for the nation’s most prestigious science magazine! My story looks at ARCdoc, the research project based at the University of Sunderland, that data-mined old ships’ logbooks for weather …
Read more “New Article on ScientificAmerican.com: Whaling logbooks reveal clues to climate change”
The University of East Anglia—where I spent a semester abroad in 1996—is launching a project to predict how the Arctic will cope with global warming by constructing a sea ice chamber and using state-of-the-art computer models. The €2M ($2.74 million) research initiative will reproduce the chemical exchanges between the ocean, sea ice, snow and the …
I’m halfway through Kenneth McGoogan’s excellent biography of John Rae, “Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot.” I love a good story about a forgotten scientific explorer, and McGoogan’s energetic and dramatic book has so far made a strong case for remembering Rae as a polar pioneer—not as the guy …
Read more ““Fatal Passage:” Arctic Explorer John Rae and the Fate of Sir John Franklin”
Was the Franklin Expedition doomed by its badly canned food? Or did the men succumb to a combination of unfortunate factors? A new study asserts that all 129 British sailors on the fated expedition died from a “marvelously catastrophic” mix of causes—and lead poisoning was just one of them. Professors Keith Millar and Adrian Bowman …
Read more “New Study Questions Franklin Expedition Lead Poisoning Theory”