Background Articles

Need a reason to be concerned about rising sea level? I've got eight.

Alberta consistently sees an average of 1400 wildfires each year however, the increased economic costs due to firefighting, equipment, damaged properties, evacuations, insurance, remote housing and food can be a challenge.

Longer hot, dry spells in the boreal forests that stretch across Alaska and the Northwest Territories create the conditions for wildfires triggered by lightning strikes.

Greenlanders struggle to get their lives back together and rebuild the small communities hit by the tsunami earlier this month.

A new report breaks down climate impacts on health by US region

Sixty years ago, around the time when Matthew Rexford's father's father was turning the ground to build his own ice cellar as a proud whaling captain, there were 12 of these such cellars in Kaktovik. Today there is only one left.

This LEO Network video documents coastal erosion impact on the old village of Meshik in Southwest Alaska and the pending lake draining event that will take out the road still used by the residents of Port Heiden. The rate of coastal erosion here is one of the highest in the world. Scientists and community members are working together to document the impacts and develop effective adaptation strategies.

A major new international study has recognized the crucial role Arctic Indigenous Peoples have to play in ecological restoration efforts that help build resilience to major climate-change driven shifts in the distribution of land, marine and freshwater species.

Climate change could cause another 4 million square kilometers, or about 1.5 million square miles, of permafrost to disappear with every additional degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming, a new study suggests.

A UM study has found that tidal flooding has leaped by 400 percent in the last ten years thanks to climate change.

If you're wondering why British Columbia experienced such a mild winter and early spring, you could maybe blame it on a mysterious "blob" of warm water in the Pacific Ocean.

Since 1976, the distribution of molting Black Brant ( Branta bernicla nigricans ) on the Arctic Coastal Plain has shifted from inland freshwater lakes to coastal marshes, such as those occupying the Smith River and Garry Creek estuaries.

By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin

At risk from surging storm waves and floods, Alaska's coastal villagers are dealing with the immediate consequences of climate change -- threats to their health, safety and even their ancestors' graves.

While climate change is the primary driver of permafrost degradation in Arctic Alaska, a new analysis of 70 years of data reveals that tundra fires are accelerating that decline, contributing disproportionately to a phenomenon known as "thermokarst," the abrupt collapse of ice-rich permafrost as a result of thawing.

By Saturday, the East Fork fire had grown to just over 108,000 acres but triggered no mandatory evacuations.

Ricky Wright points to the bank of a creek to show one way his hometown has been affected by climate change. Many banks have eroded or collapsed, and now some favorite fishing spots that were once on solid ground are reachable only by boat.

Climate change is causing infrastructure collapse and increased polar bear encounters on Little Diomede Island, Alaska, as melting permafrost undermines buildings and ice loss affects wildlife behavior.

Scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences hypothesize that as the melting of the permafrost becomes more prevalent, so will the incidence of lung cancer.

The East Fork Fire in Western Alaska is the state's largest at the moment, estimated at more than 150,000 acres Thursday, and it's burning in a region where, just a couple decades ago, large fires would not have been expected.