New research turns up more evidence of warming Arctic waters

Abnormal water flows from the North Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean are causing unprecedented warming in some areas, new research collected this fall shows.

Information gatheredaboard a Russian icebreakerfound the Arctic waters were warmer by as much as one degree in places.

"It's a pretty substantial, warm anomaly, comparable and even warmer than an anomaly found in the early '90s,"Dr. Igor Polyakov, of the International ArcticResearch Center in Fairbanks, Alaska, told CBC News.

The warming could change the thickness of Arctic sea ice as well as the amount of area it covers, affecting the marine ecosystem and the species that live there, he said.

"In 2004 we found this anomaly in the eastern Eurasian basin and now we are tracing this anomaly propagating further towards the Canadian part of the basin and towards Alaska," he said.

Prof. Julie Brigham-Grette, who is with the U.S. National Research Council, said changes have already been noticed off the coast of Alaska.

"A lot of the fishing vessels are following the northward shift in the ecosystem," she said. "A lot of the commercial fish are migrating northward as the warmer waters migrate northward."

The American researchers are working withinternational partners including Norway, Greenland and Canada.