Background Articles

In the fall of 2014, West Coast residents witnessed a strange, unprecedented ecological event. Tens of thousands of small seabird carcasses washed ashore on beaches from California to British Columbia, in what would become one of the largest bird die-offs ever recorded.

A network of more than

The frequency of high-tide flooding has doubled in 30 years. Some cities faced more than 20 days of it in the past year, and not just during hurricanes.

Fairbanks International Airport and Eielson Air Force Base no longer use a type of firefighting foam containing a chemical compound that’s contaminated groundwater around the city, and that poses a potential threat to human health.

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.

An oxygen-starved area of almost 165,000 square kilometres in the Gulf of Oman is now the world’s largest marine “dead zone.” Incapable of supporting

Every year, billions of animals migrate across the globe, carrying parasites with them and encountering parasites through their travels.

Considered the most destructive pest slug in Europe, the Spanish slug, or Arion lusitanicus, or Arion vulgaris, or sometimes Geoff (there’s some controversy over the name, thanks to the fact that the Arion genus contains up to 50 species and they all look a lot like one another) is between 7-15cm long and can weigh up to 15kilos if it’s sitting on a dog.

April should be prime walrus hunting season for the native villages that dot Alaska's remote western coast. In years past the winter sea ice where the animals rest would still be abundant, providing prime targets for subsistence hunters. But this year sea-ice coverage as of late April was more like what would be expected for mid-June, well into the melt season. These conditions are the continuation of a winter-long scarcity of sea ice in the Bering Sea-a decline so stark it has stunned researchers who have spent years watching Arctic sea ice dwindle due to climate change.

While it is commonly believed that lake evaporation is controlled primarily by incoming solar radiation, the researchers used modeling tools to show that other factors — from shorter ice periods to a “reallocation” of heat energy at lake surfaces — are accelerating the loss of lake water into the atmosphere. According to these findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, understanding these complex dynamics will be critical if scientists are to accurately predict the future hydrological response to climate change.

For centuries, nomads have herded livestock on the Mongolian steppe. Today, Mongolians are proud of their nomadic heritage, but globalisation and climate change are transforming the steppes and nomadic traditions. How Mongolia adapts to these new forces sweeping the steppes will determine the country’s future.

Coastal sand ecosystem returning to health after 1.5 years of work

The studies have established that even in places where plant diversity and abundance have improved, insect numbers still declined.

Four Dall sheep from the Talkeetna Mountains and two Kenai Peninsula mountain goats just made unfortunate Alaska history.

The animals became the state's first wild sheep and goats to test positive for a pathogen known as Movi that has led to deadly outbreaks among bighorn sheep in the Lower 48 and is triggering calls for restrictions on domestic livestock here.

Warmer temperatures and declining sea ice pulls foreign animals and plants to the Arctic, with drastic consequences for these sensitive ecosystems.

Creamy jasmine wildflowers once common in the Colorado high country may be vanishing as climate change brings warmer and drier conditions.

Reductions in sea ice in the Arctic have a clear impact on animals such as polar bears that rely on frozen surfaces for feeding, mating and migrating. But sea ice loss is changing Arctic habitat and affecting other species in more indirect ways, new research finds.

Late last year one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies announced that climate change would have an economic impact on the U.S.

The initial results represent 330 participants from six communities. Around 98 per cent of participants had mercury levels below the health guidance value - a baseline to assess health risks.

Polar bears live in a remote and inhospitable environment far from most human settlements. For most biologists, opportunities to observe these animals are fleeting. In fact, scientists' main resources for understanding basic behaviors of polar bears on sea ice are observations of polar bear behavior and foraging rates made by Canadian biologist Ian Stirling more than 40 years ago, combined with local traditional knowledge from Arctic indigenous peoples.