Eva-Liv Island in the Franz Josef Land Archipelago has almost lost a peninsula. A 3-km-long strait has formed between the main land and the melted part where Cape Mesyatsev is located. Russian Arctic National Park employees discovered the missing land during an expedition to study walruses.
With homes dilapidating, shores eroding and staircases falling off the houses, Point Lay residents are living through some of the most severe consequences of the warming climate in Alaska.
A seawall planned for Utqiagvik is aimed at protecting residents from extreme storms while preserving their connection to the ocean.
The flooding was caused by a weather system that moved up to the Bering Sea from the tropics, and raised water levels and dumped rain across much of western Alaska.
The church is no outlier — several buildings in the community are affected by freeze-thaw cycle of permafrost. Even an iconic church is not immune from changing permafrost.
The number of ships entering Canada's Northwest Passage, and the distances sailed, are all increasing, says a new report from the Arctic Council.
A big cruise vessel has anchored up along the banks of the Kola Bay as the number of infected workers in Novatek's Belokamenka project continues to grow. The construction site operated by natural gas company Novatek continues to be the hotbed of COVID-19 cases in the Russian north.
The official
With the average temperature hovering north of negative this winter, Utqiaġvik and much of the Arctic once again broke records with a season that didn't match up to historic expectations.
The Arctic Sounder - Serving the Northwest Arctic and the North Slope
Two landslides near the village of Kuujjuaraapik in Arctic Quebec have been deemed "significant" by authorities but pose no immediate danger to the community. The events happened on Thursday and affected a thick clay soil zone near the village.
Parts of Northern Siberia were up to 7℃ warmer than normal in 2020. The warming is the most significant along parts of the North Siberian coast, and especially around the peninsulas of Taymyr and Yamal. This has been brought on, in part, by polar vortex on the Arctic coast.
This comes just days after other reports of about 60 dead ice seals found from Kotlik to Kotzebue and Kivalina to Point Hope.
October began with "an explosion" of COVID-19 positive cases despite efforts to tighten and extend restrictions. In the first five days 14 residents on the North Slope and 23 in the Northwest Arctic, upping active caseloads in each borough to 40 and 45, respectively.
Deteriorating conditions on the Mackenzie Valley Winter Road have prompted the Northwest Territories government to close the winter highway for the season.
The open ocean off Utqiagvik in fall and early winter is evidence of climate change. Remarkably, bowhead whales appear to be thriving, although there are new challenges. Kidney-worm infections have been detected in bowheads, possibly brought by other species of whales coming north. And then there are the killer whales, a natural predators of bowheads now venturing north.
The extraordinary sight of a 30-foot long dead humpback whale that washed up on a beach area in Anchorage.
Staring out into the darkness, she and her husband Ivan saw "an enormous ball of light in the sky to the west. It was moving north to south, and was quite big."
Of the 89 wildfires burning across Alaska right now, several are in the northern part of the state, either in the Arctic or near its southern boundary.
For decades, the crowds of small, dark sea geese on the tundra of southwestern Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have been thinning, a situation opposite that of geese on the North Slope.
But an Icelandic whale-watching crew spotted the right whale named Mogul three times this week, leaving a research scientist wondering why the animal ventured so far.
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