Background Articles

UAF graduate student Reyce Bogardus talks about sea ice, storms and coastal erosion at Nelson Lagoon, which is on the southernmost edge of the historical max...

Climate change and warmer conditions have altered snow-driven extremes and previous studies predict less and slower snowmelt in the northern United States and Canada. However, mixed-phase precipitation—shifting between snow and rain—is increasing, especially in higher elevations, making it more challenging to predict future snowmelt, a dominant driver of severe flooding. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire took a closer look at previous studies, and because geographical areas respond differently to climate change, they found future snowmelt incidences could vary greatly by the late 21st century. Snowmelt could decrease over the continental U.S. and southern Canada but increase in Alaska and northern Canada resulting in larger flooding vulnerabilities and possibly causing major societal and economic consequences including costly infrastructure failures.

According to a new study, thawing of permafrost due to climate change could expose the Arctic population to much greater concentrations of the invisible, lung cancer-causing gas Radon.

A small, furry rodent — the vole — is showing up throughout Utah as this year’s record amount of snow melts. Orchards, residential lawns, pastures, and golf course lawns are feeling the brunt of the vole’s activity. Voles are the world’s most prolific mammals.

By Ed Struzik. This article was originally published on Yale Environment 360. Canadian scientist Philip Marsh and I were flying along the coast of the Beaufort Sea, where the frozen tundra had recently opened up into a crater the size of a football stadium. Located along the shoreline of an unnamed lake, the so-called thaw...

The release was first detected last month at one of the company’s North Slope drill sites. A report from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, dated Friday, listed the cause of the release as under evaluation and said that future plans included a continuation of “source remediation operations.”

The White House’s newly-released National Strategy for the Arctic Region reflects a growing interest by the federal government in the ways climate change is affecting Alaska. And the challenges that brings for security and economic wellbeing for arctic residents. We take a look at a recent visit by White House officials to the state, and what this new interest in the Arctic means for Alaskans.

Great Salt Lake is also known as America's Dead Sea -- owing to a likeness to its much smaller Middle Eastern counterpart -- but scientists worry the moniker could soon take new meaning.

For more than a decade, the city of Kotzebue has been planning to establish a deep-water port facility out at Cape Blossom, about 11 miles south of Kotzebue. A new road to the port would allow goods to be delivered to town, without the lightering fee.

A pilot program in Alaska lets firefighters tackle fires deep in the wilderness that burn carbon and speed climate change and don’t just threaten homes and lives.

Shaktoolik, a village in Alaska, is still waiting for aid from FEMA to rebuild a protective berm that was destroyed by a typhoon, leaving the community vulnerable to storms and erosion.

The $100 million Pretty Rocks Bridge will cross the site of a landslide that has closed the road at Mile 45 since 2021.

An assessment by geotechnical experts will need to be completed in order to know the stability of the slide and understand continuing risk.

Called yedomas in Russia, the mounds of land are much more populous there.

Around 600 competitors faced what the race director called the wettest edition of the race in its 32 years. The impact on competitors, a grueling race. The impact on the trails - mud, erosion and more mud.

"Talk of Alaska discusses the science behind landslide risk and early warning systems in the wake of Wrangell's third deadly landslide since 2015."

Cecelia Brooks remembers a time when the deep forest of New Brunswick was so cold, snow could still be found in its depths in August. That rarely happens anymore. Brooks, who lives on St. Mary's First Nation in Fredericton, is one of many Indigenous people in the Wabanaki region who say climate change is threatening traditional plants and medicines. Those changes, Brooks says, could alter their way of life.

The Institute of Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) Tribes and Climate Change Program is publishing a report called the Status of Tribes and Climate C...

Are the newly found sinkholes really new or are they just newly discovered? And how much of a concern at this point?