Rod Downie's latest posts

Earth Hour. It’s probably what I love about WWF more than anything else. It inspires me. It makes me feel proud to be a part of this organisation. Why? Well, because WWF’s Earth Hour is about bringing people together – millions of people across the world sharing a common cause and a common sense of [...]

I’m in Tromsø in Norway this week, which is north of the Arctic circle. WWF has brought together some of the world’s leading polar bear experts from Russia, Norway, Greenland, Canada and Alaska in the US – the polar bear ‘range states’ – for a workshop at the Fram High North Research Centre for Climate [...]

The Antarctic Peninsula and the Scotia Arc, including the South Orkney Islands, are among the most rapidly warming parts of our planet. Air and ocean temperatures have increased, some ice shelves have retreated or collapsed, most glaciers have also retreated, and seasonal pack ice is generally much reduced. This has important consequences for the wildlife, [...]

For the last 3 years, WWF’s Polar Programme has been supporting critical science undertaken by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Antarctica. Dr Yan Ropert-Coudert leads a team of keen scientists who spend a year or more at Dumont D’Urville station in Antarctica studying Adélie penguins. The scientists attach miniature GPS devices [...]

In April this year, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) announced plans for the proposed merger of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) with the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) to create a single body responsible for marine and polar science. At WWF, we work closely with BAS. We view them as a leading light in Antarctic [...]

The dramatic decline in summer sea ice will have a profound effect on Arctic people and species. Nick Sundt (the communications director for climate change at WWF US) follows some tagged walruses from Alaska to Russia in his latest blog, and explores some of the implications of a warming Arctic for the Pacific walrus. Less [...]

1.32 million – remember that number. It sounds big, except when it’s describing Arctic sea ice: 1.32 million square miles is actually a new low point for Arctic ice – the smallest sea ice extent ever recorded in the Arctic since accurate measurements were made possible by satellites 30 years ago. And it was reached [...]

Populations of chinstrap penguins are in decline around the Antarctic Peninsula – one of the fastest warming places on the planet. The US-based organisation Oceanites has been collecting and analysing penguin population data at many locations on the Antarctic Peninsula since 1994. One of those is Deception Island (62°57′S, 60°38′W) – one of the most [...]

On Sunday, the Arctic sea ice hit its lowest extent since consistent satellite records began three decades ago. And it is predicted to continue to shrink towards the end of September, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. At 1.58 million square miles, it was 27,000 square miles below the 2007 [...]

Climate change is well established on the Antarctic peninsula, one of the most rapidly warming places on our planet. This is threatening ice sheets that have been stable for many thousands of years. The BBC today reported on the results, published by Nature, of an ice core retrieved by the British Antarctic Survey from James [...]