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Monday, March 02, 2026

Conservation Groups Challenge Removal of Wildlife Protections on 1.1 Million Acres of Public Land in Montana

March 2, 2026

Four Montana-based Conservation Groups — Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council, and Council on Fish & Wildlife — sued the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service for removing wildlife protections on 1.1 million acres of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana.

The federal government agencies issued a “Forest Plan Amendment” in 2025 to remove protections on 1.1 million acres of habitat that was formerly mapped and protected as “lynx habitat” for the Canada lynx, a threatened species listed under the Endangered Species Act. The removal of these protections will allow more private logging operations on these publicly-owned lands. Lynx are highly sensitive to logging operations, and are known to avoid logged areas. The lynx population in the Greater Yellowstone Area is currently at risk of extinction, but if managed properly, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest could aid the recovery of the imperiled Greater Yellowstone lynx population by serving as a connectivity corridor with the healthier lynx populations in Northern Montana. By choosing to remove protections rather than increase them, however, the government is completely undermining recovery of this struggling lynx population.

The Forest Service recently amended its Forest Plan to eliminate legally-binding logging restrictions on 1.1 million acres of connectivity lynx habitat — which is an area larger than Glacier National Park.

This amendment undermines lynx recovery, which the Forest Service is legally bound to pursue for all species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Although both the Forest Service and Fish & Wildlife Service are required by law to follow the best available science, in this case, both agencies are ignoring the best available science that finds that the entire Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest is either reproductive, residential, or dispersal lynx habitat, all of which need to be protected.

The primary purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. The Forest Service is doing the opposite. Instead they are working to drive lynx to extinction and destroying the ecosystems upon which they depend.

Lynx require dense, mature boreal forests with thick undergrowth for survival. They need this type of habitat for denning and hunting snowshoe hare which is their primary prey. The Forest Service sees a thick forest as something that needs to be eliminated by logging and burning to ensure the Forest Service’s survival.

When the executive branch of the federal government breaks the law the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizens the right to sue the government. If someone throws a brick through a window, the police enforce the law. But when a federal agency breaks the law, it’s the citizens who must stand up to enforce the law. This is how the civil justice system works and citizens should never be shamed or intimidated from holding the government accountable to the law.

To do this we need your help. Please consider donating to the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and to Counterpunch so both can continue to hold the government accountable.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Sunday, March 01, 2026

Will melting glaciers slow climate change? A prevailing theory is on shaky ground

In Antarctica, Rutgers marine scientists find evidence to challenge a key assumption about iron availability, an essential micronutrient in the process of carbon dioxide removal

Rutgers University

image:
Sampling rosette with gray sampling bottles at left, the ship’s rail at lower right, and the face of the ice shelf in the background.
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Credit: Robert Sherrell

For scientists who study the Southern Ocean, a long-standing silver lining in the gloomy forecast of climate change has been the theory of iron fertilization. As temperatures rise and glaciers in Antarctica melt, ice-trapped iron would feed blooms of microscopic algae, pulling heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.

There’s just one problem: The theory doesn’t hold water.

In what researchers describe as the most accurate measurement of iron inputs from a glacier in Antarctica, marine scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick have discovered that meltwater from an Antarctic ice shelf supplies far less iron to surrounding waters than once thought.

The findings, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, raise questions about the sources of iron in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, and could significantly alter how climate change predictions are forecasted and modeled, the researchers said.

“It has been widely assumed that glacial melting underneath ice shelves contributes considerable bioavailable iron to these shelf waters, in a process of natural glacier-driven iron fertilization,” said Rob Sherrell, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the study’s principal investigator.

Sherrell said the study modifies those assumptions by determining that the amount of iron in meltwater is several times lower than previously thought and that most of that iron comes from a different type of meltwater than is produced by ice shelves melting.

Despite being shrouded in darkness for several months a year, the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean are a highly productive region for growth of phytoplankton – the vital food source for krill, which feed penguins, seals and whales. As phytoplankton grow, they absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, making the region the world's largest oceanic sink for the climate-warming gas.

Previous research into iron sources in the Southern Ocean has primarily been through simulations and computer modeling. Together with researchers from Rutgers and several universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, Sherrell, who also is a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, took a different approach. In 2022, they traveled aboard a now-decommissioned U.S. icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, to the Dotson Ice Shelf, located in the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, to collect melting glacial water at the source. The Amundsen Sea accounts for most of the sea level rise driven by Antarctic melting.

In the Amundsen Sea, glacial meltwater comes from beneath floating ice shelves – the seaward extensions of glaciers from the continent – and the melting is caused primarily by warm water that flows from the deep ocean into the cavities under the ice.

At the Dotson Ice Shelf, Sherrell and his team identified where seawater enters one such cavity and where it exits after meltwater is added. They collected water samples from entry and exit points.

Back in New Jersey, Sherrell’s colleague Venkatesh Chinni, a postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the study, analyzed the samples for iron content in both its dissolved state and in suspended particles. Collaborators Jessica Fitzsimmons, a professor and chemical oceanographer, and Janelle Steffen, an assistant research scientist, both at Texas A&M University, measured the isotopic ratios to “fingerprint” and distinguish the sources. Steffen carried out initial isotopic measurements in the laboratory of Tim Conway, an associate professor at the University of South Florida.

Chinni and the team then calculated how much more iron was coming out of the cavity than went in and deduced from the isotopic data the type of melting that was responsible.

The results were surprising, Sherrell said. Total meltwater contributed about 10% of the outflowing dissolved iron, with the majority contributed by inflowing deep water (62%) and another 28% as inputs from shelf sediments.

“Roughly 90% of the dissolved iron coming out of the ice shelf cavity comes from deep waters and sediments outside the cavity, not from meltwater,” Chinni said.

Additionally, iron isotope ratios from the samples suggest that somewhere beneath the glacier is a liquid meltwater layer that lacks dissolved oxygen, a condition that promotes the dissolution of solid iron oxides in the bedrock, seemingly a larger source of iron than ice shelf melting, Chinni said.

Taken together, the findings challenge prevailing assumptions about iron sources in the Southern Ocean in a warming world, though additional research is needed to better understand how the subglacial processes are involved, the team said.

“Our claim in this paper is that the meltwater itself carries very little iron, and that most of the iron that it does carry comes from the grinding up and dissolving of bedrock into the liquid layer between the bedrock and the ice sheet, not from the ice that is driving sea level rise,” Sherrell said.

For some colleagues, this will be a very surprising realization, he added.

Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-026-03264-x

Friday, February 27, 2026

Could glacier melt slow climate change? Scientists thought so – until now

By Liam Gilliver

Published on 26/02/2026 - EURONEWS

Iron fertilisation has long been touted as a glimmer of hope amid rising emissions – but a new study has seemingly debunked the theory.

A “long-standing silver lining” to the wrath of climate change has been put under scrutiny, as scientists find a huge flaw in the theory.

As heat-trapping emissions continue to bake the planet, glaciers in Antarctica are witnessing unprecedented melt. Despite being geographically isolated from civilisation, the demise of these vast bodies of ice has a significant impact on the entire world.

Thwaits Glacier, aka the Doomsday Glacier, is already responsible for four per cent of global annual sea level rise. If it were to collapse completely, sea levels could increase by a staggering 65cm.

To put this into context, scientists predict that for every centimetre of sea level rise, around six million people are exposed to coastal flooding.

But down in the elusive Southern Ocean, the theory of iron fertilisation offered a glimmer of hope.

What is iron fertilisation?

As temperatures rise and glaciers melt, ice-trapped iron is released into the ocean.

Scientists theorised that this iron goes on to feed huge blooms of microscopic algae, which can suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

When the algae dies, it sinks to the sea floor – potentially sequestering carbon forever.

While some researchers have promoted dumping large amounts of iron into the ocean as part of geoengineering drives to tackle rising emissions, others warn it could potentially cause “dead zones”.

This is where oxygen levels are so low – in this case, consumed by decomposing algae – that little to no life can exist beneath the surface water. It has already occurred in places like the Baltic Sea due to nutrient pollution from human activity.

Can melting glaciers help reduce carbon emissions?

However, marine scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the US have discovered that meltwater from the Antarctic ice shelf supplies far less iron to surrounding waters than previously thought.

Working with several universities in the US and UK, Rob Sherrell, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, and his team travelled to the Dotson Ice Shelf in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica, in 2022.

The Amundsen Sea accounts for most of the sea level rise driven by Antarctic melting. Here, glacial meltwater comes from beneath floating ice shelves, primarily driven by warm water flowing from the deep ocean into the cavities under the ice.

To measure how much iron this meltwater contributes to surrounding waters, researchers identified where seawater enters one such cavity and where it exits after meltwater is added. They collected water samples from both entry and exit points.

Back in the US, Sherrell’s colleague Venkatesh Chinni analysed the samples for iron content in both its dissolved state and in suspended particles to calculate how much more iron was coming out of the cavity than went in.

To their surprise, the scientists found that only around10 per cent of the outflowing dissolved iron came from the meltwater itself. The majority came from inflowing deep ocean water (62 per cent) and inputs from shelf sediments (28 per cent).

‘Meltwater carries very little iron’

“Roughly 90 per cent of the dissolved iron coming out of the ice shelf cavity comes from deep waters and sediments outside the cavity, not from meltwater,” Chinni says.

The study, published in the science journal Communications Earth and Environment, also found that beneath the glacier is a liquid meltwater layer that lacks dissolved oxygen. This could be a larger source of iron than ice shelf melting.

The team says that more research is now needed to understand Antarctica’s iron sources in a warming world. It means the “silver lining” many scientists hoped for may no longer hold water.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

'A dangerous trend': Olympic skiers voice concern over receding glaciers

By Jennifer McDermott with AP

Published on 18/02/2026 -

Olympic host country Italy has lost more than 200 square kilometres of glacier area since the late 1950s.

Team USA skiers Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, along with Italy's Federica Brignone, are among the many skiers who have expressed concern during these Olympic Games about the accelerating melt of the world’s glaciers.

And Olympic host city Cortina is a fitting place for them to be talking about climate change: glaciers once visible from town have dramatically shrunk. Many have been reduced to tiny glaciers or residual ice patches at high elevations among the jagged peaks of the Dolomites. Any Olympian or spectator wishing to lay eyes on a major glacier would have to take a long drive on winding mountain roads to the Marmolada. It's melting rapidly, too.

The world’s top skiers train on glaciers because of the high-quality snow there, and a warming world jeopardises the future of their sport. Vonn started skiing on glaciers in Austria when she was just 9 years old.

“Most of the glaciers that I used to ski on are pretty much gone,” 41-year-old Vonn said at a pre-race press conference in Cortina before she crashed on the Olympic downhill course. “So that’s very real and it’s very apparent to us.”

As athletes in snow sports, Shiffrin said, they “get a real front-row view” to the monumental changes underway atop some of the world’s highest, coldest peaks.

“It is something that’s very close to our heart, because it is the heart and soul of what we do,” Shiffrin told news agency AP after racing Sunday. “I would really, really like to believe and hope that with strong voices and broader policy changes within companies and governments, there is a hope for a future of our sport. But I think right now, it’s a little bit of a question.”

Italy's glaciers are disappearing

Italian glaciologist Antonella Senese said Italy has lost more than 200 square kilometres of glacier area since the late 1950s.

“We are observing a continuous and uninterrupted decrease in glacier area and volume. In the last one to two decades, this reduction has clearly accelerated,” Senese, associate professor of physical geography in the University of Milan's environmental science and policy department, said in an interview.

Among the peaks surrounding Cortina d’Ampezzo, there are glaciers on the slopes of the Cristallo and Sorapiss mountains. The 2015 New Italian Glacier Inventory found these glaciers shrunk by about one-third since the 1959-1962 inventory.

Shortly after winning a second gold Sunday at her home Winter Olympics, Brignone told AP that skiing is “totally different” now than when she was younger. Brignone lives in the Valle d’Aosta, about six hours away.

When she sees how glaciers are retreating to higher elevations, Brignone said she’s not thinking about the future of skiing – she’s concerned for the future of the planet.

“There we have a lot of glaciers, but they are going up and up, every year, more and more,” she told AP.

Yet many people who don't frequent the mountains remain unaware of what's at stake, so the University of Innsbruck created the Goodbye Glaciers Project. The loss of glaciers has far-reaching consequences, threatening water sources, increasing mountain hazards and contributing to sea level rise.

The project shows how different warming levels change the amount of ice left on selected glaciers around the world. To be included, glaciers must have an estimated 2020 volume of at least 0.01 cubic kilometres. The Cristallo and Sorapiss glaciers no longer meet that threshold, said Patrick Schmitt, a doctoral student at the University of Innsbruck.

Preserving glaciers

Some 50 kilometres from Cortina is the Marmolada glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Italy and the largest in the Dolomites. An apartment building-sized chunk of the glacier detached in July 2022, sparking an avalanche of debris that killed 11 hikers. The mountain is popular for hiking in summer and skiing in winter.

The University of Padua said in 2023 the glacier had been halved over 25 years.

It's expected to be mostly gone by 2034 if the world warms 2.7 Celsius, according to the Goodbye Glaciers Project. But if warming is limited to 1.5 C – the international goal – the glacier’s life could be extended by another six years, and around 100 glaciers in the Alps can be saved, Schmitt said.

“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions now will reduce future ice loss and soften the impacts on people and nature,” Schmitt wrote in an email. “The choices we make in this decade will decide how much ice remains in the Dolomites, across the Alps, and around the world.”

Globally, more than 6.5 trillion tonnes of ice has been lost since 2000, according to a study last year. And the prospective impact of climate change on Olympic sport is enormous; the list of places that could host Winter Games is projected to shrink substantially in the coming years.

It's not just Vonn, Shiffrin and Brignone – many Olympic skiers are concerned

In Cortina, Noa Szollos, who is competing for Israel, said in an interview the state of the nearby glaciers speaks to the condition of glaciers around the world.

“I hope we can do something about it,” she said, “but it’s a hard time.”

Silja Koskinen of Finland said in an interview she can’t train on some of the glaciers she used to because of crevices, rocks and flowing water. Team USA skier AJ Hurt talked about starting the season in October on glaciers in Sölden, Austria.

“Every year, I feel like we come and there’s a little less snow. And every time, we’re like, are we really going to start in October? There’s no snow here,'” Hurt told the AP. “It is really sad and it’s hard to ignore in this sport, definitely, when we’re around it so much and it is so clear.”

Norwegian skier Nikolai Schirmer is leading an effort to stop fossil fuel companies from sponsoring winter sports. Burning coal, oil and gas is the largest contributor to global climate change by far.

In Bormio, Italy, Team USA skier River Radamus said athletes – as stewards of outdoor winter sports – should be on the forefront of trying to defend the environment as best they can.

“It’s always present in our mind that we’re on a dangerous trend unless we do something right,” Radamus said.

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