Background Articles

It’s not always lethal, but the fungus has decimated frog populations around the world and is thought to be responsible for up to 90 extinctions. Researchers aren’t sure how it got to Alaska, but it has been observed here since the year 2000.

Three charters flew to distribute 10,921 pounds of donated king salmon to Bush and rural Alaska communities.

As the deepest and most northern of the Great Lakes, Superior was once thought immune to algal blooms, which is why it was such a shock when the first report of blue-green algae came in 2012.

Second of three parts: As salmon stocks have crashed on the Yukon River, so has a key source of income in fish-dependent communities.

Ida Wessman, 28, bought her family's herd of reindeer after her father passed away five years ago. "It's been going pretty well. With this industry you've got high points and low points," Wessman said, alluding to severe 2019-2020 weather that killed 15,000 of the animals.

Sixteen miles (26km) off the windswept coast of northern Scotland, the future of renewable energy is taking shape. Rotating rhythmically in the breeze, the five colossal turbines of the Hywind Scotland wind farm look much like any other off-shore wind project, bar one major difference – they're floating.

By summer, the heart of Alaska’s road system will feature a string of fast-charging stations between Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula.

Weather systems that carry warm air inland, bringing not just rain, but also pushing up freezing levels, causing rapid snowpack melting. The atmospheric river hitting B.C.'s central coast will also pose a risk in the Interior.

Fall moose hunts are beginning across Alaska. In western parts of the state, biologists hope that hunting pressure will help protect the health of booming populations. They also want to know why there are so many moose in the first place. It may have a lot to do with shrubs — particularly scrubby willows shooting up at the edges of open tundra. 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.

Are the newly found sinkholes really new or are they just newly discovered? And how much of a concern at this point?

"Even ordinary rainfall can be regarded as an extreme event in polar regions," Dou said. This is because rain-on-snow events, which occur when rain falls onto an existing snowpack and freezes into an ice crust, impact wildlife, infrastructure and local communities.

Scientists determine geese died due to exhaustion and salt-poisoning. More birds end up dying because of the long flights they undertake, in extreme conditions.

The climate crisis is bringing extreme heat, changing ocean currents and intensifying storms – and it’s dealing a devastating blow to one of the most threatened groups of birds in the world.

Recently, however, scientists have observed not just shrinking lakes but lakes that have completely gone away. A paper published this year in Nature Climate Change, based on satellite imagery, found widespread lake loss across the Arctic over the past 20 years.

Special report: Ocean warming has put at risk the historic Alaska crab fishery. After a dismal summer survey, state biologists slashed this year’s harvest of snow crab by nearly 90% from 2021 levels.

It causes legs to fall off and, ultimately, results in disintegration of the animals’ bodies. Climate change may be behind that disease, as the arrival of Pacific marine heat waves coincided with the disease outbreak, according to federal biologists.The sea star, with a range from Baja California to the Aleutians, would be the first sea star with an Endangered Species Act listing.

Residents and Fish and Game present ideas and opinions around Northwest Caribou population and hunting regulations and restrictions. .

As Alaska faces an increased risk of spring breakup flooding this year, scientists are asking residents to share photos documenting major rivers’ progress from ice to water to help them predict with more accuracy where flooding might occur.

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency will visit Japan next week to meet with officials and see final preparations for the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The company says it's the first in the world to convert a full fleet to run on the most environmentally friendly fuel available.