Energy News  
Norway's Arctic islands at their hottest since Viking era: scientists

by Staff Writers
Oslo (AFP) Dec 11, 2007
Norway's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard recently experienced its highest temperatures since the end of the Viking Age around 800 years ago, the Norwegian Polar Institute said Tuesday.

Analysis of ice taken from Lomonosovfonna, one of the highest glaciers on Svalbard, confirms that recent local temperatures have been at their highest since the 13th century, the institute said in a statement.

"And the warming is accelerating," Elisabeth Isaksson, one of the glaciologists at the institute, told AFP.

The institute in 1997 removed ice cores from the glacier containing climate information dating back 800 years and it has only recently finished analysing the wealth of data.

Thermometer measurements taken since 1911 meanwhile show that 2006 was the warmest year on record in the archipelago.

During the Viking Age, which was much warmer than the following centuries, people from Europe's Nordic region had access to ice-free seas all the way to Greenland and North America, Isaksson said.

The ice core samples did not go deep enough however to determine the exact temperatures at the time, she said.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Beyond the Ice Age



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Call for action to save Himalayan glaciers
Beppu, Japan (AFP) Dec 4, 2007
As industrial powers debate global warming, some of the greatest concern lies in the remote Himalayas where melting glaciers pose catastrophic risks, experts say.







The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement