Background Articles

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.

Arctic fox rabies is enzootic in populations of arctic and red fox populations along Alaska’s northern and western coasts. This means rabies is always present in these populations at some low level but periodically there can be outbreaks called epizootics (an outbreak in animal disease rather than an epidemic as is it is called when occurring in a human population). However, the winter of 2020-2021 ushered in a widespread outbreak with persistent and large focus in and around Nome.

Drivers on the Coquihalla could feel the heat in their cars as they rushed to clear the highway before the July Mountain fire overtook it. Somewhere in the ashes is the route for the Trans Mountain pipeline, a project that would fuel the climate change that’s making these fires worse.

The Norwegian Public Roads Administration and Torghatten Nord have signed an agreement on Norway’s first full-scale hydrogen ferry which allows for CO2 emission cuts equaling 13,000 diesel-fueled cars per year.

Decades of clear-cut logging across B.C. have disrupted the landscape's natural mechanisms for mitigating floods and landslides, according to a professor at UBC. Before logging, the forest canopy helps to collect rainfall and shade snowpack, slow down the springtime melt, and aid runoff absorption.

As the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the planet, evidence mounts that the region is experiencing unprecedented environmental change. The hydrological cycle is projected to intensify throughout the twenty-first century, with increased evaporation from expanding open water areas and more precipitation. The latest projections from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) point to more rapid Arctic warming and sea-ice loss by the year 2100 than in previous projections, and consequently, larger and faster changes in the hydrological cycle. Arctic precipitation (rainfall) increases more rapidly in CMIP6 than in CMIP5 due to greater global warming and poleward moisture transport, greater Arctic amplification and sea-ice loss and increased sensitivity of precipitation to Arctic warming. The transition from a snow- to rain-dominated Arctic in the summer and autumn is projected to occur decades earlier and at a lower level of global warming, potentially under 1.5 °C, with profound climatic, ecosystem and socio-economic impacts. The Arctic warms faster than other areas of the planet, which also influences precipitation. Here, the authors show that the latest CMIP6 model ensemble shows a faster Arctic warming and sea-ice loss, causing an earlier transition from a snow- to a rain-dominated Arctic than previously thought.

Biologists are collecting samples from moose and mustelids — that’s wolverines, minks and martens. There are plans to test caribou and Sitka black tail deer, as well as seals and belugas.

A tick tracking app that recently became available to residents in the N.W.T. and Yukom allows residents to report tick sightings. It also helps people identify what type of tick they've found.

Experts are warning about the negative health impacts from air pollution as we head into wildfire season — and new research suggests it could exacerbate severe outcomes from COVID-19 and increase the risk of lung disease.

There are more than 20 invasive plant species in the Yukon that spread, change the makeup of the soil and generally prevent native plant species from thriving in their natural environment. here's what you can do about six of the most common ones.

Biologists want to know why there are so many moose. It may have a lot to do with shrubs — moose feast on their leaves during the spring and summer. These short woody plants are spreading west, aided by climate change, and moose populations are expanding along with them.

Federal regulators have approved a plan to demolish four Klamath River dams, a historic act that is intended to save imperiled salmon. “The Klamath salmon are coming home,” Yurok Tribe Chairman Joseph James said in a statement. “The people have earned this victory and with it, we carry on our sacred duty to the fish that have sustained our people since the beginning of time.”

Powerful underwater explosions were detected in the Baltic Sea at the end of September, near the Danish island of Bornholm. Explosive substances were found on several of the objects encountered during the crime scene investigation in the Baltic Sea, Swedish security police say.

Canada’s Western Hudson Bay polar bear population has fallen 27 percent in just five years, according to a government report released last week, suggesting climate change is impacting the animals.

The clam population crashed on the east side of Cook Inlet about a decade ago and has been slow to bounce back.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists discovered how the current epizootic H5N1 avian influenza virus (bird flu) gained new genes and greater virulence as it spread west. Researchers showed that the avian virus could severely infect the brains of mammalian research models, a notable departure from previous related strains of the virus.

Global average temperature exceeded previous record by substantial margin

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.