The tide of mud and clay destroyed as many as 14 houses in Ask in the municipality of Gjerdrum, some 30km north of Oslo. Hundreds were evacuated and police said 21 people living in the affected area were still unaccounted for. The landslide area is known for its "quick clay", a form of clay that can behave more like a liquid than a solid when disturbed. It is thought heavy rain in recent days may have caused the soil to shift.
“This new snow has no name,” said Lars-Anders Kuhmunen, a reindeer herder from Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town, near the Norwegian border. “I don’t know what it is. It is like early tjaevi, which normally comes in March. The winters are warmer now and there is rain, making the ground icy. The snow on top is very bad snow and the reindeer can’t dig for their food.”
Eva-Liv Island in the Franz Josef Land Archipelago has almost lost a peninsula. A 3-km-long strait has formed between the main land and the melted part where Cape Mesyatsev is located. Russian Arctic National Park employees discovered the missing land during an expedition to study walruses.
Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity
Rising sea temperatures may mean prey swimming in deeper water out of reach of guillemots, razorbills, puffins and kittiwakes
Climate change could be just another challenge for the gray-cheeked thrush and other distinct species.
An incredibly rare octopus invasion may have been caused by recent storms. Storm Ophelia, quickly followed by Storm Brian caused huge waves and storm surges as gusts of up to 80 mph hit the Welsh coast.
Climate change is keeping temperatures higher in the fall, setting up browntail-moth caterpillars to boom in summer. Their hairs are barbed and hollow and there’s a reservoir of a toxin inside.
The virus was first reported among brown skua on Bird Island, off South Georgia. Since then, researchers and observers have reported mass deaths of elephant seals, as well as increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua at several other sites. Researchers warn of one of ‘largest ecological disasters of modern times’ if the highly contagious disease reaches penguin colonies.
Scientists are baffled by a wave of whale deaths - which saw more carcasses wash up on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland in the past month than in the previous decade.
‘Catastrophic breeding event’ leads to demands for a marine protected area to be set up in East Antarctica
Salmon rivers like the Exploits River were closed to anglers around the province by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans earlier this week because of low water levels.
Plastic waste in the ocean is now so widespread it is polluting remote ice floes in the Arctic, scientists have discovered.
Rockfall buries access road but stops just in front of hamlet, which had been evacuated in anticipation.
Tourists flocked to the national park to catch a glimpse of the rare phenomenon on Wednesday
The Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland erupted over the weekend, and drone pilot Bjorn Steinbekk captured amazing footage by flying straight through the lava. The eruption is a small one but looks incredibly nonetheless.
Weatherwatch A recent heatwave in Siberia’s frozen wastes has resulted in outbreaks of deadly anthrax and a series of violent explosions
The rarest bird sighted in 2018 was the purple gallinule on the Waterford River in St. John’s. There have been more than a dozen recorded sightings in the past, typically on a ship or in a random back garden only to be seen briefly and never again. This bird was different. It was present for about six weeks from mid-May and into June.
As 2018 comes to a close it is time to look back at the birding year in Newfoundland. According to my calculations 272 species of birds were observed on the island of Newfoundland in 2018. This grand total is on par with recent years.
People in southern Labrador and along Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula are being cautioned to be on the lookout for the bears, who have already begun to move north.
"In Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador disputes over water shortages are part of a wider fight for equal access and shared responsibility"
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