psc.apl.uw.eduPolar Science Center

News Polar Science Weekend at Pacific Science Center – March 2-3, 10 am – 5 pm Polar Science Weekend is two days of hands-on activities, live demonstrations, and exhibits presented by scientists who work in some of the most remote and challenging places on earth. Learn about ice sheets and sea ice, polar bears and penguins, scientific instruments, and polar expeditions. Don’t miss Polar Science Weekend! read more » PSC Seeks Science & Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) Postdoctoral Scholar The APL-UW SEED (Science & Engineering Enrichment and Development) Postdoctoral Scholar Program welcomes proposals for independently designed and led novel research projects. SEED scholars will be mentored by and collaborate with APL-UW researchers and Polar Science is one of the possible research areas included. Follow the link for more information! read more » PSC’s Kristin Laidre featured for her work on climate-sensitive Arctic mammals in The New York Times Magazine The Scientists Watching Their Life’s Work Disappear read more » Environmental Evaluation: ONR Part of Joint Effort to Deploy Data Buoys Across Arctic Ocean In July 2023, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) partnered with the 144th Airlift Squadron of the Alaska Air National Guard to deploy five different types of weather buoys across more than 1,000 nautical miles of the Arctic Ocean. Such deployments are critical for maintaining the Arctic Observing Network (AON), which provides observations for weather and ice forecasting and related research. The 144th Airlift Squadron (the Arctic Wolves”) and part of the 176th Wing (the Arctic Guardians”) conducted the flights on a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. In addition to personnel from the 176th Wing, participants included PSC’s Ignatius Rigor along with professors and scientists from the University of Maryland as well as ONR reservists. read more » Welcome, Dr. Laramie Jensen! Welcome, Dr. Laramie Jensen! Laramie Jensen is a high latitude chemical oceanographer who received her PhD in Oceanography from Texas A&M University in 2020. She studies micronutrient trace metals (like iron, manganese, copper, nickel, zinc, cadmium, lead, and more) and how their supply to the Arctic is changing. As a former CICOES postdoc here at UW, she collaborated with Drs Rebecca Woodgate and Cecilia Peralta Ferriz at the PSC to combine trace metal and macronutrient measurements with the high resolution hydrography surveys conducted as part of the Bering Strait Mooring Project. She is looking forward to continuing this project and expanding… read more » Join Pacific Science Center for the Premiere Showing of ‘Arctic: Our Frozen Planet’ at the Science and a Movie Event featuring PSC’s Eric Regehr The Pacific Science Center will be showing Arctic: Our Frozen Planet, an IMAX nature documentary by the BBC which PSC’s very own Eric Regehr helped film, and also appears in! Dr. Regehr will be doing a Q&A about polar bears after the showing on May 27. Regehr will answer questions from the audience after the morning and afternoon showings on Saturday, May 27. The Thursday, May 25, evening showing will feature a Q&A with UW glaciologist Ian Joughin. Admission is $5, or free for PacSci members.Narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, Arctic: Our Frozen Planet is an epic adventure across the magical realm of snow and ice at the top… read more » In Memoriam of Gary A. Maykut, Friend of PSC and Sea Ice Researcher Gary A. Maykut passed peacefully at his home on March 10, 2023. Gary held the position of Research Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington from the early 1970s until his retirement in 2004. Gary pioneered the numerical simulation of the Arctic surface energy budget, specifically quantifying the 1-D accounting of heat by the ice cover. Gary’s graduate work (1971) produced the highly-cited paper Some results from a time-dependent thermodynamic model of sea ice.” This work laid the foundation for how modern global (and regional) climate models do the accounting” of heat by the Arctic sea… read more » Freezer lab work reveals sea ice properties of MOSAiC ice cores Chair Dr. Bonnie Light joined a group of international scientists in Bremerhaven, Germany in January 2023 to process and analyze sea ice core samples brought back from the 2019-2020 MOSAiC expedition. Photo Credit: Amy Lauren read more » UW Climatologist Ignatius Rigor Collaborates with Professor Combining Art and Data to Capture Beauty, Diversity of Arctic Ice Images of massive chunks of ice collapsing from Greenland’s glaciers into the ocean have become emblematic of a changing climate and the need to drastically reduce global carbon emissions.University of Maryland Assistant Professor of Art Cy Keener is working to characterize some of these icebergs—capturing their unique identities and the ways they change as they drift in the sea.His collaborative Iceberg Portraiture” series is part of an exhibition now on view at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C., which Keener created with landscape researcher Justine Holzman, climatologist Ignatius Rigor and scientist John Woods. It’s the result of almost… read more » Welcome, Dr. Astrid Pacini! Welcome, Dr. Astrid Pacini! Astrid received her PhD in Physical Oceanography from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in 2022 and holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Yale. She joins PSC as a postdoctoral research associate and holds a 2022 NSF Office of Polar Programs Fellowship. Astrid will work with Dr. Michael Steele, examining the evolution of upper ocean properties in the Arctic Ocean’s Seasonal Ice Zone. Astrid loves field work and has spent time on various research vessels, but her favorite ship will always be the RV Neil Armstrong, where she spent six months during graduate school. At the PSC, she is excited to continue mentoring high school and undergraduate students, and participating in outreach programs. read more » Polar Bears That Persist Audio clip from Scientific American ’s 60-Second Science with ’s Kristin Laidre explaining why she and PSC alumna Twila Moon were so fascinated by their recent Science Magazine results. read more » Newly documented population of polar bears in Southeast Greenland sheds light on the species’ future in a warming Arctic A new population of polar bears documented on the southeast coast of Greenland use glacier ice to survive despite limited access to sea ice. This small, genetically distinct group of polar bears could be important to the future of the species in a warming world . read more » New Leadership at PSC On Oct 1, 2021 after 12.5 years at the helm of PSC, Axel Schweiger stepped back from his role as Chair of PSC. PSC sea ice researcher Bonnie Light has taken on the leadership role. read more » Climate change: ‘Last refuge’ for polar bears is vulnerable to warming A new study finds that an area of the Arctic Ocean critical for the survival of polar bears is fast becoming vulnerable to climate change. The region, dubbed the last ice area” had been expected to stay frozen far longer than other parts of the Arctic. But this new analysis says that this area suffered record melting last summer. The researchers say that high winds allied to a changing climate were behind the unexpected decline. read more » Edge of Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf is ripping apart, causing key Antarctic glacier to gain speed June 11, 2021 – We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected,” said lead author Ian Joughin , a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. The processes we’d been studying in this region were leading to an irreversible collapse , but at a fairly measured pace. Things could be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf.” read more » PSC lost a dear friend, Andy Heiberg (1938-2021) The APL family lost a dear friend and a key figure in our success in polar oceanography when Andy...