Polar Life
On the crumbling edge
The race to ensure protection for the emperor penguin across the world
From north to south pole, climate scientists grapple with pandemic disruptions
Carin Ashjian, a biological oceanographer at WHOI who studies the impact of climate on ecology, was also on the ship then and remembers that “there were a lot of mixed feelings” when news of the pandemic hit them in March. She described how they were both worried about the safety of people back home, while feeling relief that they were protected from the virus by their geographic isolation.
Woods Hole scientist part of MOSAiC expedition that spent year researching Arctic ecosystem
The research vessel Polarstern returned to its home port in Germany Monday after spending a year locked in thick sea ice, floating in the Arctic Ocean and gathering data. Among those onboard was Carin Ashjian, a senior scientist and biology department chairwoman at WHOI.
Arctic Science Mission Wraps Up as Research Ship Docks in Germany
After a year spent drifting across the top of the world, frozen in sea ice, a German research ship returned home on Monday, ending the largest Arctic science expedition in history, one aimed at better understanding a region that is rapidly changing as the world warms.
Penguin math – Science & Tech – WORLD
Penguins may not know anything about math, but their formations align with sophisticated physics and geometry concepts. The research validates an earlier study in which a team of researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution used robotic, high-resolution cameras at a remote Antarctic research station to monitor the penguins’ behavior and measure the movements of individuals within the colony.
Penguins Are Nature’s Best Snugglers
It turns out that penguins execute their huddles with a high degree of mathematical efficiency, as Blanchette and his team discovered. More recently, Daniel Zitterbart, a physicist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, helped develop and install high-resolution cameras to observe undisturbed huddling behavior.
Covid-19 Forces Spring Science Field Work to Go Fallow
Carin Ashjian, a senior scientist at WHOI, was one of 97 scientists and crew members aboard a German oceanographic research vessel that has been deliberately stranded in Arctic Sea ice as part of the year-long MOSAIC experiment.
March of the penguins
If current warming trends continue, emperor penguins will be marching toward an 86 per cent population decline by the end of the century, at which point, “it is very unlikely for them to bounce back,” says study author Stephanie Jenouvrier, a seabird ecologist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
An Emperor Penguin Colony in Antarctica Vanishes
Are emperor penguins eating enough?
features the work of Dan Zitterbart