Background Articles

Warm periods are bringing the temperature up by as much as 30 C in the middle of winter

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

An assistant professor at the University of Alaska–Fairbanks suspects that changes seen in the auklet population on Little Diomede may be related to changes in climate.

huge tsunami occurred in the Karrat Fjord on the west coast of Greenland, resulting in severe property damage and casualties in the tiny fishing village of Nuugaatsiaq. The seismic energy detected prior to the tsunami was so large it was first thought to have been the result of a magnitude 4.1 earthquake. However, the cause was a massive landslide on a steep slope of the fjord where millions of cubic meters of rock plunged into the water below, 32 kilometers northeast of the village. Forty-five structures, including eleven houses, were washed away or destroyed, and four people were killed.

The whales seem to have died from starvation and washed up on shore from California to Alaska

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

Parts of the Arctic Ocean have become an “important sink of plastic debris,” mainly coming north from the southern latitudes—with 300 billion or more plastic items carried in ice-free Arctic waters.

The inhabitants of Lau Lagoon in Solomon Islands have lived in harmony with nature for generations. Now their entire way of life is vanishing beneath the waves.

Guyana’s fish production has suffered a significant decline partly due to the adverse impact of sargassum seaweed, local and regional fishery experts said.

This visualization begins by showing the dynamic beauty of the Arctic sea ice as it responds to winds and ocean currents. Research into the behavior of the Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years has led to a deeper understanding of how this ice survives from year to year. In the animation that follows, age of the sea ice is visible, showing the younger ice in darker shades of blue and the oldest ice in brighter white. This visual representation of the ice age clearly shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016.

B.C salmon farms last year were besieged by sea lice, according to a new University of Toronto study, which also found a dangerously steep rise of infestation among young wild salmon who swam nearby.

FioRito, Rebecca, Celeste Leander, and Brian Leander. "Characterization of three novel species of Labyrinthulomycota isolated from ochre sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus." Marine Biology 163.8 (2016): 1-10.

Contagious cancers occur in clams and other bivalves, and some can even spread between different species of bivalves.

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

Populations of marine wildlife have plummeted by a half on average over the past 40 years with some species suffering far greater declines as a result of habitat loss, overfishing, rising sea temperatures and worsening ocean acidity, a major report has found.

The "unprecedented" warm water in the Pacific caused a massive toxic algae bloom from California to Alaska.

Scientists first caught on to the strange event when they found thousands of purple sea urchins and other organisms dead in their laboratory tanks. Their theory: The mass deaths were caused by a huge bloom of algae.

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.

The half mile-long sea wall was constructed in 2012 at a cost of $34 million to help offset coastal erosion and protect the community from encroaching sea ice.

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.