Temperatures in the area were unseasonably high last week, reaching into the mid-40s, according to the National Weather Service. Then temperatures dropped below freezing Sunday and into Monday morning. "There's a lot of water flowing underground in this area," McCarthy said. The freeze-thaw "caused some instability and that made it slide."

Port Heiden’s road to its harbor and old village site is crumbling into the sea and the lake on the other side of it will likely breach soon. “The road is basically gone. [Erosion]’s cut right half into the road,” said Scott Anderson, the Native Village of Port Heiden’s Tribal Environmental Director.

Sweden’s shrinking southern shorelines need to be saved with sand, according to researchers from Lund University.

Frequent burning over decades reduces the amount of carbon and nitrogen stored in soils of savanna grasslands and broadleaf forests, in part because reduced plant growth means less carbon being drawn out of the atmosphere and stored in plant matter.

Scientists analyzed 27 extreme weather events from 2016 and found that global warming was a “significant driver” for most of them. We look at five cases.

Driven by fierce Santa Ana winds, four intense fires near Los Angeles grew to engulf more than 115,000 acres Thursday, and officials say residents should be prepared for even more strong winds through Friday.

Wildfires have burned more than 100,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Fighting them were professionals and homeowners with garden hoses.

Crews are working to clear snow off of the Richardson Highway near Valdez, after excessive snow has not relented, and an avalanche has poured over the isolated highway stretch.

Multiple fires are burning in Southern California, claiming hundreds of structures and thousands of acres and closing many freeways and local roadways, according to state fire officials.

"A decade after the “Save the Rainforest” movement captured the world’s imagination, Cargill and other food giants are pushing deeper into the wilderness."

Land's End Resort was built more than 50 years ago, and during that time, the Homer Spit has changed dramatically. A change in the direction and intensity of winds may be driving the faster erosion.

Dusting of ash reported overnight.

Herschel Island has seen a lot of people come and go. The Inuvialuit have used the place, known as Qikiqtaruk in Inuvialuktun, for at least 1,000 years.

Darren Nasogaluak has an unusual problem.As the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, a small Inuvialuit hamlet on the coast of the Beaufort Sea, he has had to watch bits of his community wash away over the years.

Unique paleontological sites are facing destruction from gangs seeking to sell prehistoric remains. The hunters are especially active in late summer, when the permafrost retreats leaving mammoth remains more visible.

A recent study estimates permafrost coverage on the peninsula has decreased by 60 percent since 1950. Permafrost is usually associated with Northern and Interior Alaska, but it also occurs in isolated pockets in wetlands on the Kenai Peninsula.

As Alaska warms and permafrost thaws, the chemistry of the Yukon River's water is transforming chemically, new research from the U.S. Geological Survey shows.

The 2007 fire was probably the first for that area in 6,500 years, according to scientific evidence examined later, Higuera said. But the wait for the next big burn won't be nearly as long, according to the evidence gathered in the study.