Researchers from some 60 countries will try to better understand the Earth's poles this year and the effect of climate change as part of the first "International Polar Year" since the 1950s.
The scientific effort, unlike previous undertakings, will be marked by the specter of global warming and transformed by collaboration with Inuits living in the Arctic.
Experts are expected to receive a funding boost from the International Polar Year (IPY), an elaborate program that will inject close to US$500 million into polar research.
This is the fourth IPY to be organized but it is the first time that it will be carried out against the backdrop of climate change.
"Close to 60 percent of what is known about the polar regions, particularly the Arctic, comes from research carried out in 1958," said Louis Fortier, scientific director of ArcticNet, a Canadian research network on the Arctic.
"The difference today is that the new polar year will occur in the context of global warming," Fortier added.
With a contribution of US$150 million, Canada is the principal patron of IPY, followed by Scandinavian countries and the US.
"Canada's goal for the program is to bring foreign researchers to the Canadian Arctic, which is more than a third of the Arctic. The Russian portion is much less accessible," Fortier said.
Scientists studying the Arctic in the past limited their work to biological, geographical and physical sciences, but they will now examine the impact of climate change on humans.
"The other difference between this year and the previous polar years is the very explicit inclusion of what we call the human dimension," said David Hik, an Arctic expert at the University of Alberta.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of