Background Articles

Officials cited rockfall danger and traffic hazards created by people stopping to fill containers.

Last year's drought summer resulted in halved grass crops in Eastern Norway compared to the previous year, according to recent figures from Statistics Norway. - The consequences of the drought continue to affect the daily lives of many farmers, says Lars Petter Bartnes, leader of the Norwegian Farmers' Union.

Scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have declared 2018 the fourth warmest year on record. It ranks behind 2016, 2017 and 2015, respectively. And it's only going to get warmer from here, they predict.

At least a third of the ice in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush will thaw this century as temperatures rise, disrupting river flows vital for growing crops from China to India, scientists say.

Glaciers in western North America over the past 18 years have lost some 117 gigatons of ice — enough that if it was melted and spread across the state of Washington it would come up our knees, said David Shean, co-author of a recent study cataloging glacial loss.

Slik har Norge forandret seg. Sakte, nesten umerkelig.

A new report says Alaska and the Arctic are on the front lines of climate change, outpacing the rest of the globe.

An unprecedented drought in Afghanistan has led to families selling their children just to be able to feed their households.

A new study based on analysis of satellite images shows how much snow cover Switzerland has lost in the last 20 years. Losing all the glaciers in Switzerland is not that far away.

Algae isn't just causing swimmers' itch anymore; it's threatening water supplies. State regulations are starting to address it.

Iqaluit is prepared to spend $566,000 on an emergency backup plan, but there's a risk it may never be used, says a city director.

In Gachuurt Village in Bayanzurkh district, beavers are being introduced to restore the headwaters of the Tuul River, the main drinking water source of the capital city, Ulaanbaatar.

The combination of abundant rain and snowfall and extremely warm mean annual air temperatures may have led to the destabilization of permafrost around lake margins. Rapid snow melt and high amounts of excess meltwater further promoted rapid lateral breaching at lake shores and consequently sudden drainage of some of the largest lakes of the study region.

Climate change may be enabling beavers to move deeper into the Arctic. And as they move, they magnify climate change’s effects.

High severity burns bring higher concentrations of white ash and burned soil organic matter, which is more prone to erosion, overland flow, and leaching, while also being associated with low plant survival.

Under the one-two punch of a dry fall and a frigid winter, winter crops in Ukraine were in poor condition in April and May 2006. This vegetation anomaly (difference from normal) image was created from data collected by MODIS. Widespread brown indicates that plants throughout the region had grown less compared to the average growth for 2000-2005. The Foreign Agricultural Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, estimated that only 10 metric tons of winter wheat, the primary crop growing here, would be harvested in July and August. That figure was down about 46 percent from the 18.7 metric tons harvested in 2005.

Warming of Alaska has dire consequences for state; effects of 7-degree rise in Alaska's temperature over last 30 years include buckling highways, shoreline erosion and forests killed by beatles; in Alaska, rising temperatures, whether caused by greenhouse gas emissions or nature in prolonged mood swing, are not a topic of debate or an abstraction; Sen Ted Stevens says that no place is experiencing more startling change from rising temperatures than Alaska and that problems will cost Alaska hundreds of millions of dollars; photos (M)

Janice Moore, who lives along the West Channel, is worried about fuel contamination after intense flooding in Hay River, N.W.T., left multiple fuel containers strewn about her property. "You can smell the diesel smell and fuel smell," she said.

Nunavut communities have seen a five-year high of water advisories in 2021, without counting Iqaluit’s ongoing water emergency. As of Friday, about a month before the year’s end, 14 water advisories had been issued in seven communities outside of the capital city this year, more than tripling the four advisories issued in 2017.

For the residents of Tuluksak, breakup means that they will once again be losing their source of running water.