Background Articles

For most communities with waterfront, erosion is not a future problem. It’s a daily issue for planners, businesses and residents with approaches differing by community.

Five aerial photos of moose in the Adirondacks

The Gulf of St. Lawrence has warmed and lost oxygen faster than almost anywhere else in the global oceans due to large-scale climate change, raising the possibility the Gulf could soon be unable to support marine life, according to a new study.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence has warmed and lost oxygen more rapidly than almost anywhere else in the Earth's oceanic waters due in part to climate change, raising the possibility that it could soon be unable to fully support marine life, according to a new study.

The Alaska Vitamin D Workgroup recently formulated Alaska-specific vitamin D supplement recommendations. It recommends clinicians in the 49th state consider prescribing double the nationally recommended amount for breastfed infants. Listen now

Thriving communities of red algae are doing something nefarious to the world's ice sheets: melting them more quickly.

Thriving communities of red algae are doing something nefarious to the world's ice sheets: melting them more quickly.

Scientists say the threat from sargassum is as serious as rising sea levels and hurricanes.

Leptospirosis infections, caused by Leptospira bacteria, occur in people and animals around the world, but different strains of the bacteria may vary in their ability to cause disease and to jump between species. Now, researchers have for the first time described the characteristics of the Leptospira variants that infect cattle in Uruguay.

Zarantonelli et al. 2018. Isolation of pathogenic Leptospira strains from naturally infected cattle in Uruguay reveals high serovar diversity, and uncovers a relevant risk for human leptospirosis. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 12 (9): e0006694 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006694

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.

The permafrost beneath certain lakes is thawing rapidly, which will release a significant amount of methane into the atmosphere.

For millennia, ecosystems in Greenland and throughout the Arctic have been regulated by seasonal changes that govern the greening of vegetation and the migration and reproduction of animals. But a rapidly warming climate and disappearing sea ice are upending that finely tuned balance.

Mass die-offs and breeding failures, now ongoing for years, have marine biologists worried that this is a new normal caused by climate change.

From Longyearbyen to Kiribati, Bangladesh and California. Author Teresa Grøtan has collected young people's everyday life with climate change in the book "Before the Island Sink."

The toxic algae bloom has already been named as the killer or suspected killer of more than 100 manatees since the spring.

A powerful wave as tall as 55-storey building crashed through a fjord in Alaska in 2015, stripping the mountainsides of trees and dirt. It was triggered by a landslide — and researchers say such tsunamis could pose an increasing risk in places like Western Canada as climate change melts glaciers.

Air pollution may contribute to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), according to research at the universities of Oulu and Birmingham.

After an highly abnormal summer, more warm weather is forecast for September.

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