Background Articles

“We’re dropping in elevation because we live on ice cubes,” says a scientist trying to map permafrost.

Upgrades are needed on the tarmac

A federal regulator has lifted a stop-work order on tree cutting and grass mowing along the route of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

Work will stop until 21 August after the discovery of an Anna’s hummingbird nest during construction of TransMountain pipeline

Climate change is worsening water scarcity in rural Alaska and a host of new strategies is needed to help address the issue says a recent study.

Experts raise concerns about residents who refuse to evacuate as ‘huge explosion’ reported at La Soufriere volcano. The volcano, which last erupted in 1979, began spewing copious amounts of ash on Friday.

Midway along the 92-mile road that winds through Denali National Park, at a spot with an elevation of 3,500 feet and spectacular views of the Alaska Range and the braided rivers that flow out of it, an unstable wall of rock, ice, soil and clay rises precariously. The slope into which the road was cut eight decades ago is already collapsing gradually — and there are fears that it could collapse much more suddenly in the future.

As permafrost thaws around the world, the steel, concrete and tarmac structures sitting on top are warping and crumbling. Is there anything engineers can do to adapt?

The port is expected to strengthen national security in the Arctic, given its strategic location on the Pacific Rim. The port is also expected to reduce shipping costs and make access to cargo and fuel cheaper for Western Alaska communities.

Residents of the Southwest Alaska village are hauling water from the Kuskokwim River, collecting rainwater and drinking donated bottled water as officials seek a viable option.

Barnehage, sjukeheim, rådhus, legesenter, barneskule, vass- og avløpssystem, eit bustadfelt og ei av hovudfartsårene inn til Gjerdrum er sett ut av spel.

Residents of Seyðisfjörður in East Iceland have been returning home this weekend, and it will become clear today whether people from the part of the town that was first evacuated will also be allowed to return home now that the intense rain that caused devastating mudslides in the town, destroying or damaging a dozen houses and completely changing the appearance of the town and the fjord, has passed.

The National Police Commissioner has raised the level of alert for the town. After a week of extreme rainfall, devastating landslides have hit the town of Seyðisfjörður in east Iceland.

Dozens more homes in Haines were evacuated Thursday night as rain continued to saturate the mountainsides near residential neighborhoods.

The region is prime landslide territory and a changing climate - trending toward warmer, rainier winters - is likely to increase the frequency of slides in the future.

Environmental campaigners stressed the need for the incoming Biden White House to put in place permanent protections for Alaska's Bristol Bay after the Trump administration on Wednesday denied a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine that threatened "lasting harm to this phenomenally productive ecosystem" and death to the area's Indigenous culture.

A spill that dumped thousands of tons of diesel fuel into the Russian Arctic earlier this year was caused by violations during construction and operation of a storage tank, not permafrost melt, according to a preliminary investigation. 

Eugene Asicksik, the mayor at the time, had watched Shaktoolik’s shoreline erode for years. After the September 2013 storm threw tree-sized driftwood dangerously close to the homes, Eugene knew something had to be done to protect the community. He turned to beavers for inspiration, designing Shaktoolik’s first storm surge berm based on the impressive beaver dams upriver.

The Red Dog Mine announced last week that it was able to start the use of a new waste water treatment system to purify water after record-breaking warm weather in 2019 caused the sediment levels to rise in the Ikalukrok and Wulik Rivers.

Glaciers are melting, permafrost thaws and buildings are sagging. What scares the scientists most is studies of decomposing carbon from beneath the ground being emitted to the atmosphere as CO2 or methane.