A study released this month found that as the climate changes in the North, some cold-adapted arctic birds are especially susceptible to heat stress.
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Published on: 3 Aug 2021
The Arctic is warming at approximately twice the global rate. A new study led by researchers from McGill University finds that cold-adapted Arctic species, like the thick-billed murre, are especially vulnerable to heat stress caused by climate change.
“We discovered that murres have the lowest cooling efficiency ever reported in birds, which means they have an extremely poor ability to dissipate or lose heat,” says lead author Emily Choy, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Natural Resource Sciences Department at McGill University.
Published on: 7 Jul 2021
“Our research shows that climate change is having substantial impacts on Arctic ecosystems, with consequences for exposure to toxic pollutants like mercury,” says co-author Jean-Pierre Desforges, a Postdoctoral Fellow [NRS] at McGill University under the supervision of Nil Basu [NRS/SHN] and Melissa McKinney [NRS].
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Published on: 31 Mar 2021
In the Arctic, climate change and pollution are the biggest threats to top predators like narwhals. Studying the animals’ tusks reveals that diet and exposure to pollution have shifted over the past half century in response to sea-ice decline. Human emissions have also led to a sharp rise in the presence of mercury in recent years, according to an international team of researchers.
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Published on: 29 Mar 2021
Emily Choy [Post Doctoral Fellow, NRS. Advisor : Kyle Elliott] became hooked on the Arctic when, as a Master’s student, she jumped on a research opportunity to study the effects of manmade contaminants on High Arctic food webs on Devon Island, Nunavut. “When I experienced how out of the world it was and observed the wildlife that are so highly adapted to the Arctic environment, I just fell in love,” says Choy.
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Published on: 25 Nov 2020
[Natural Resource Sciences professor Kyle Elliott, Canada Research Chair in Arctic Ecology, and grad students Allison Patterson and Don-Jean Leandri-Breton are co-authors on this study]
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Published on: 8 Nov 2020
The Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in the summer within the next 30 years, a study says, which will result in "devastating consequences for the Arctic ecosystem," according to McGill University in Montreal. Sea ice is frozen ocean water that melts each summer, then refreezes each winter. The amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic has been steadily shrinking over the past few decades because of global warming. Since satellite records began in 1979, summer Arctic ice has lost 40% of its area and up to 70% of its volume, the Guardian said.
Published on: 23 Apr 2020
Summer Arctic sea-ice is predicted to disappear before 2050, resulting in devastating consequences for the Arctic ecosystem. The efficacy of climate-protection measures will determine how often and for how long. These are the results of a new study involving 21 research institutes from around the world, including McGill University.
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Published on: 21 Apr 2020
A research team led by McGill University geochemist Peter Douglas has used a new method for measuring the rate at which methane is produced by microbes breaking down thawing permafrost. “There is a lot of concern about methane being released from permafrost, but we don’t know how available carbon that has been frozen for thousands of years is to microbes,” says Douglas, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Published on: 26 Mar 2020
The movement of sea ice between Arctic countries is expected to significantly increase this century, raising the risk of more widely transporting pollutants like microplastics and oil between neighbouring coastal states, according to new research from McGill University in collaboration with University of Colorado Boulder, Columbia University, and Arizona State University.
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Published on: 19 Mar 2020
Two McGill researchers developing solutions to clean marine oil spills in the Northwest Passage and in oceans surrounding Canada to receive $3.7 million in funding from the Multi-Partner Research Initiative (MPRI).
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Published on: 3 Sep 2019
Que nous dit le Grand Nord sur notre climat, présent et passé? Isabelle Burgun s’entretient avec deux chercheurs : Marianne Falardeau-Côté, candidate au doctorat au département des sciences des ressources naturelles à l'Université McGill. Elle avait précédemment voyagé sur l’Amundsen dans le cadre de sa maîtrise.
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Published on: 12 Oct 2018
Shipping and mining in the Arctic. The spread of invasive microbial pathogens around the world. Changing agricultural practices. Use of genomic-modification tools. Those are among the 14 most significant issues that could affect the science and management of invasive species over the next two decades, according to an international team of ecologists, who published their findings in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
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Published on: 4 May 2017
Congratulations to M.Sc. candidate Émile Brisson-Curadeau (Supervisor: Prof. Kyle Elliott, NRS) for capturing second place in "NSERC -" Science, action!" competition contest for "La sentinelle des mers".
ABOUT ÉMILE
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Published on: 5 Apr 2017
“Both the Arctic and Antarctic experienced record lows in sea ice extent in November, with scientists astonished to see Arctic ice actually retreating at a time when the region enters the cold darkness of winter.” (The Guardian) (National Snow & Ice Data Center)
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Published on: 7 Dec 2016
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