Background Articles

An assistant professor at the University of Alaska–Fairbanks suspects that changes seen in the auklet population on Little Diomede may be related to changes in climate.

In the Bering Sea, near the edge the continental shelf, fishermen are trying to escape a predator that seems to outwit them at every turn, stripping their fishing lines and lurking behind their vessels.

huge tsunami occurred in the Karrat Fjord on the west coast of Greenland, resulting in severe property damage and casualties in the tiny fishing village of Nuugaatsiaq. The seismic energy detected prior to the tsunami was so large it was first thought to have been the result of a magnitude 4.1 earthquake. However, the cause was a massive landslide on a steep slope of the fjord where millions of cubic meters of rock plunged into the water below, 32 kilometers northeast of the village. Forty-five structures, including eleven houses, were washed away or destroyed, and four people were killed.

Since the mid 1990s, the number of black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans; brant) nests on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD), Alaska, USA, the historically predominant breeding area of brant, has declined steadily.

In the Arctic, brown bears (Ursus arctos) are expanding their range northward, in some cases competing with and even mating with polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Beavers (Castor canadensis) have been found as far north as the coast of the Beaufort Sea. The list includes mammals, amphibians, fish and insects.

Since June 7, 2017, elevated North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) mortalities have been documented, primarily in Canada and were declared an Unusual Mortality Event.  In 2017, there was a total of 17 confirmed dead stranded whales (12 in Canada; 5 in the United States) and in 2018, three whales stranded in the United States. In 2019, two whales have stranded in Canada.

The whales seem to have died from starvation and washed up on shore from California to Alaska

According to numbers in the Food Security in Nunatsiavut survey, nearly 60 per cent of all households along Labrador's north coast struggle with access to food, and most worry about it running out before they have money to buy more.

The latest research shows that diminishing Arctic sea ice caused by climate change is forcing some species to travel further to find food or look for alternative food sources.

A new report breaks down climate impacts on health by US region

These big, blubbery beasts are sensitive souls that dislike being disturbed by people. Unfortunately for them, warming Arctic temperatures are bringing more shipping and tourism to their home waters.

Shifts in species ranges are a global phenomenon, well known to occur in response to a changing climate. New species arriving in an area may become pest species, modify ecosystem structure, or represent challenges or opportunities for fisheries and recreation. Early detection of range shifts and prompt implementation of any appropriate management strategies is therefore crucial. This study investigates whether first sightings' of marine species outside their normal ranges could provide an early warning of impending climate-driven range shifts. We examine the relationships between first sightings and marine regions defined by patterns of local climate velocities (calculated on a 50-year timescale), while also considering the distribution of observational effort (i. e. number of sampling days recorded with biological observations in global databases). The marine trajectory regions include climatesource' regions (areas lacking connections to warmer areas), corridor' regions (areas where moving isotherms converge), andsink' regions (areas where isotherms locally disappear). Additionally, we investigate the latitudinal band in which first sightings were recorded, and species' thermal affiliations. We found that first sightings are more likely to occur in climate sink and `divergent' regions (areas where many rapid and diverging climate trajectories pass through) indicating a role of temperature in driving changes in marine species distributions. The majority of our fish first sightings appear to be tropical and subtropical species moving towards high latitudes, as would be expected in climate warming. Our results indicate that first sightings are likely related to longer-term climatic processes, and therefore have potential use to indicate likely climate-driven range shifts. The development of an approach to detect impending range shifts at an early stage will allow resource managers and researchers to better manage opportunities resulting from range-shifting species before they potentially colonize.

Sixty years ago, around the time when Matthew Rexford's father's father was turning the ground to build his own ice cellar as a proud whaling captain, there were 12 of these such cellars in Kaktovik. Today there is only one left.

Parts of the Arctic Ocean have become an “important sink of plastic debris,” mainly coming north from the southern latitudes—with 300 billion or more plastic items carried in ice-free Arctic waters.

This LEO Network video documents coastal erosion impact on the old village of Meshik in Southwest Alaska and the pending lake draining event that will take out the road still used by the residents of Port Heiden. The rate of coastal erosion here is one of the highest in the world. Scientists and community members are working together to document the impacts and develop effective adaptation strategies.

A major new international study has recognized the crucial role Arctic Indigenous Peoples have to play in ecological restoration efforts that help build resilience to major climate-change driven shifts in the distribution of land, marine and freshwater species.

Climate change could cause another 4 million square kilometers, or about 1.5 million square miles, of permafrost to disappear with every additional degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming, a new study suggests.

The Canada lynx, once eliminated from most of New England by forest clearing and unsustainable hunting and trapping, is making a comeback.