Background Articles

This is not the first time the village of Chefornak has faced the threat of erosion and flooding, but relocating won’t be as easy as it was last time.

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.

Warming Arctic temperatures can create an environment friendly to bacterial infections like anthrax, an infection spread by contact with bacterial spores, which plant-eating animals may eat or breathe in while grazing.

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.

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.

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.

As atmospheric scientists, we found in a recent study that thawing permafrost contains lots of microscopic ice-nucleating particles. These particles make it easier for water droplets to freeze; and if the ones in permafrost get airborne, they could affect Arctic clouds.

In Yakutia, just a few meters separate summer from winter. There are places here where you can always build a snowman or taste fresh snowflakes.

New research shows that amplified global warming in the Canadian High Arctic drove a profound shift in the structure of a river network carved into a permafrost landscape in only 60 years. Researchers combined air photographs from 1959 with field observations and state-of-the-art Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data they collected in 2019 to understand how the Axel Heiberg Island landscape has evolved over a 60-year period

Most of Alaska sits atop permafrost. But the ground is thawing, leading to unexpected and sometimes catastrophic outcomes — what scientists have called a “slow disaster.”

An amount of shoreline roughly the size of central Moscow now collapses into the sea every year.

Chukotka lawmakers have unanimously approved a law protecting permafrost landscapes and establishing a government service to monitor permafrost changes.

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.

One-third of the mercury going into the ocean comes from the atmosphere, a quarter comes from ocean currents, one fifth comes from river flows and one-fifth comes from coastal erosion. The speed at which permafrost is releasing toxic metal is still being studied.

Tracking changes in permafrost can take years and sometimes decades, lags that cannot keep up with the transformations in the rapidly warming Arctic.

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 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.

Ketchikan, Alaska news. Southeast Alaska news, Alaska news, national and world news.

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.

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