Search results for "Arctic"
showing 10 items of 565 documents
Remote but Connected : Lapland as a Scene of Transnational Crime in Ivalo
2021
Set in a small town in the north of Finland, the crime TV series Ivalo (Arctic Circle, Finland, 2018) exemplifies the fascination of Nordic Noir with ‘remote’ locations as scenes of transnational crime. The plot seems to forebode the corona pandemic, portraying the spread of a life-threatening ‘Yemenite virus’ developed as a biological weapon from the Balkans to Lapland. In this article, I analyze how the virus narrative allows the series to bring new perspectives on Nordic Noir. The narrative emphasizes international connections while creating representations of places that can be characterized as both translocal (Greiner and Sakdapolrak 2013) and glocal (Robertson 2012). Because of its fa…
Opportunities and challenges of the opening of the Arctic Ocean for Norway
2020
Abstract This chapter analyzes the potential opportunities and challenges associated with the opening of the Arctic Ocean for Norway. Climate change in the Arctic is opening up access to sea routes of the Arctic region, and this could boost trade and consequently result in a sharp increase in shipping traffic in Norway. Specifically, Northern Norway would become a focal point for port- and shipping-related activities. However, these opportunities can only be fully utilized if the various stakeholders involved are able to manage the challenges of the opening of the Arctic Ocean. Like opportunities, challenges also cover a range of spheres, including environmental pollution, ecological damage…
Could the acid-base status of Antarctic sea urchins indicate a better-than-expected resilience to near-future ocean acidification?
2015
Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration alters the chemistry of the oceans towards more acidic conditions. Polar oceans are particularly affected due to their low temperature, low carbonate content and mixing patterns, for instance upwellings. Calcifying organisms are expected to be highly impacted by the decrease in the oceans' pH and carbonate ions concentration. In particular, sea urchins, members of the phylum Echinodermata, are hypothesized to be at risk due to their high-magnesium calcite skeleton. However, tolerance to ocean acidification in metazoans is first linked to acid-base regulation capacities of the extracellular fluids. No information on this is available to dat…
Ship emissions measurement in the Arctic from plume intercepts of the Canadian Coast Guard <i>Amundsen</i> icebreaker fro…
2016
Abstract. Decreasing sea ice and increasing marine navigability in northern latitudes have changed Arctic ship traffic patterns in recent years and are predicted to increase annual ship traffic in the Arctic in the future. Development of effective regulations to manage environmental impacts of shipping requires an understanding of ship emissions and atmospheric processing in the Arctic environment. As part of the summer 2014 NETCARE (Network on Climate and Aerosols) campaign, the plume dispersion and gas and particle emission factors of emissions originating from the Canadian Coast Guard Amundsen icebreaker operating near Resolute Bay, NU, Canada have been investigated. The Amundsen burnt d…
Predicting the environmental suitability for onchocerciasis in Africa as an aid to elimination planning
2021
Recent evidence suggests that, in some foci, elimination of onchocerciasis from Africa may be feasible with mass drug administration (MDA) of ivermectin. To achieve continental elimination of transmission, mapping surveys will need to be conducted across all implementation units (IUs) for which endemicity status is currently unknown. Using boosted regression tree models with optimised hyperparameter selection, we estimated environmental suitability for onchocerciasis at the 5 × 5-km resolution across Africa. In order to classify IUs that include locations that are environmentally suitable, we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to identify an optimal threshold for suitabil…
Intraspecific Differences in Spectral Reflectance Curves as Indicators of Reduced Vitality in High-Arctic Plants
2017
Remote sensing is a suitable candidate for monitoring rapid changes in Polar regions, offering high-resolution spectral, spatial and radiometric data. This paper focuses on the spectral properties of dominant plant species acquired during the first week of August 2015. Twenty-eight plots were selected, which could easily be identified in the field as well as on RapidEye satellite imagery. Spectral measurements of individual species were acquired, and heavy metal contamination stress factors were measured contemporaneously. As a result, a unique spectral library of dominant plant species, heavy metal concentrations and damage ratios were achieved with an indication that species-specific chan…
Valanginian isotope variation in glendonites and belemnites from Arctic Svalbard: Transient glacial temperatures during the Cretaceous greenhouse
2010
Oxygen and carbon isotope data from Cretaceous (Valanginian) glendonites and belemnites from Arctic Svalbard are presented. Oxygen isotope data from well-preserved glendonites, in conjunction with the ikaite to glendonite pseudomorph transition temperature, are used to provide an estimate of the oxygen isotope composition of ambient seawater. Calculation of such a factor is essential for robust paleotemperature estimates. Using this methodology, our paleotemperatures calculated from the oxygen isotope compositions of coexisting belemnites yield cool temperatures (4–7 °C) consistent with transient glacial polar conditions during the Cretaceous greenhouse. Cool polar temperatures during the C…
Arctic mosasaurs (Squamata, Mosasauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Russia
2020
Abstract From the northern part of Chukotka Region (Russian Far East) and Nether-Polar Urals, one of the oldest and one of the most northerly occurrences of mosasaur remains in the world are recorded. The appearance of mosasaurs at high latitudes could be explained by the expansion of their habitat and an unusual balance of insolation. Polar day conditions could have been useful for marine predators such as mosasaurs because they could have hunted for prey at any time. During the Cretaceous, almost two months of complete darkness can be reconstructed for the territory of present-day Chukotka, and more than one month of twilight. It is highly unlikely that these large-sized animals with a hi…
The ‘giant phyllosoma’ are larval stages of Parribacus antarcticus (Decapoda : Scyllaridae)
2014
Early reports on larval distributions are frustratingly obscure due to ambiguous identification of plankton samples. A particularly striking case is posed by the so-called ‘giant phyllosoma’ which attain 80 mm in total length and are among the largest larvae known in marine invertebrates. Based on the supposition that these giant larvae are produced by local species, Philip Robertson (1968) assigned them to Parribacus. In the present study, 12 phyllosoma larvae collected in the Coral Sea and corresponding to intermediate stages VI to IX are described in detail. The identity of these freshly caught specimens was confirmed as belonging to Parribacus antarcticus (Lund, 1793) by using DNA barco…
Microevolution of eastern palaearctic Grey tits as indicated by their vocalizations (Parus [Poecile]: Paridae, Aves) I. Parus montanus: Contributions…
2009
Within the Palaearctic Region, the Willow tit (Parus montanus) displays four vicariant forms of territorial song. 1. “Alpine” form (pure single-frequency whistles, Fig. 5: 1) in the Alps and adjacent mountains to the East. 2. “Lowland” or “Normal” form (frequency change from high to low within one note, Fig. 5: 2) in the other parts of NW, Central and SE Europe. 3. In populations of N and E Europe as well as of W and E Siberia every individual bird uses - so far as known - both song types; this “Siberian” form (Figs. 1, 2) includes intergrades (Fig. 3). The comparatively type-rich Siberian repertoire is found in a vast area from N and E Europe to the Amur River and Ussuriland in Siberia. 4.…