Locals in Kotzebue showed a mix of excitement and concern over the weekend in response to reports that a rare polar bear was spotted in the area.

Rare footage shot by a researcher expedition in Norway shows a polar bear hunting and catching a swimming adult reindeer. The video, captured by Mateusz Gruszka, a cook for an expedition of Polish researchers in August 2021 on the Svalbard archipelago, shows the bear catching the reindeer and drowning it before dragging it ashore.

A state of emergency was declared in mid-August in Khatanga, a small town on the banks of the river of the same name in Russia’s far northern Taymyr Peninsula, after more than 1,200 dead reindeer were found scattered on the river’s banks.

On August 14, 2021, temperatures rose above freezing on the summit of Greenland, fueling a rain event that dumped 7 billion tons of water—the heaviest since records began in 1950.

Entomologists confirm the report of the world's largest hornet — a worrisome invasive species that originates from East Asia and Japan — by a person in a rural area near the Canadian border.

These prolonged above-normal temperatures required the City of Cranbrook to increase water restrictions to levels not generally experienced by the community. Additionally, during this time (personal experience), the water was discoloured and had an odor, forcing bottled water to ensure safe drinking.

A handful of fires burning east of Humboldt continued to grow overnight with minimal containment, bringing air quality and travel impacts. Parts of State Route 36 have reopened to controlled traffic. Overall hot, dry conditions are expected to complicate fire suppression efforts.

A decades-long decline in salmon in the Yukon River has reached a crisis this year, forcing harvest closures and prompting emergency shipments of salmon from other regions of Alaska to river residents who are otherwise facing food shortages.

The wildfire has now grown to 565 square kilometres in size.

The village is losing ground three times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to studies of Napakiak’s erosion. During high tide, the river is only 64 feet from the high-schoolers’ original classroom and gets closer by the day. On windy days, waves crash against the shore where students used to play, battering it until the land relents and crumbles.

Extreme drought in the west means that households with private waterworks are out of water. Elvar's dried up. "The situation is very serious," he says.

At this time of year, the geese are moulting — and therefore unable to fly — so they congregate near ponds to avoid the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), which is reluctant to jump into the water. But the bear was about to use a new hunting technique: he dove under the water, disappeared from the eyes of the geese who had stopped fleeing, and emerged from underneath one of them.

Starting last week, regional residents reported numerous dead seabirds washing up on regional beaches. Alaska Sea Grant Agent Gay Sheffield said there were carcasses of murres, puffins, shearwaters and a kittiwake starting on July 28; in Golovin, Solomon, Nome and a dead Little Diomede.

Poaching and climate change might be the reasons why more than 1,200 migrating animals did not make it across the wide Arctic waterway.

This July was the warmest on record in nearly all of North and East Iceland. The average temperature was above 14°C at several weather stations, and no average monthly temperature in Iceland is ever known to have been higher.

The driest summer in 150 years has turned Yakutia into a tinderbox and seen wildfires tear through the region.

The record was driven in part by a heavy rainstorm that set Kotzebue's single-day precipitation record.

Unusual high water all summer in Noatak, causing massive erosion towards the airport and old buried landfill, exposing old trash into the river.

Red currant leaf consumption by something was observed by my supervisor while walking along a salmon stream.

About 10% of our catch during dip net fishing at mouth of Kenai River was harboring these worms.