Background Articles

When it comes to avian influenza, more commonly known as bird flu, all birds are not created equal.

One-third of the mercury going into the ocean comes from the atmosphere, a quarter comes from ocean currents, one fifth comes from river flows and one-fifth comes from coastal erosion. The speed at which permafrost is releasing toxic metal is still being studied.

In some ways, it was the Florida Man of storms – not quite knowing when to say when. Usually, thunderstorms fizzle out after they run out of rain or get cold air sucked in. But not Wednesday, when …

A small, furry rodent — the vole — is showing up throughout Utah as this year’s record amount of snow melts. Orchards, residential lawns, pastures, and golf course lawns are feeling the brunt of the vole’s activity. Voles are the world’s most prolific mammals.

About a week ago, we noticed an intruder in our front yard -- a vivid yellow, blob-like substance that appeared to be invisibly oozing across our garden mulch like the beginnings of a horror film.

A wildlife biologist says the search isn’t over. Opossum litters are usually eight or nine joeys — and can be as many as 13.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and Agency for Marine and Water Management want to create a national list of invasive species, and have presented ...

Hurricanes form in the tropics, feeding on very warm ocean waters. As they track northward, they may transform to an extratropical storm with an added punch, sometimes reaching southern Greenland, Alaska, and even Arctic latitudes of the North Atlantic.

Tracking changes in permafrost can take years and sometimes decades, lags that cannot keep up with the transformations in the rapidly warming Arctic.

At about its halfway point, the record-breaking hot and extreme summer of 2023 is both unprecedented and unsurprising. Killer heat. Deadly floods.

A three-week evacuation odyssey ended for many Yellowknifers Wednesday, as people began to return home. The barricades outside of the city opened at 11 a.m., and cars began streaming in.

Researchers say warmer waters themselves aren’t killing crabs, but they may be allowing predators to move in and disease to spread more easily.

Kenai River flooding began last week when glacier-dammed lakes burst and caused water levels to rapidly rise. Water levels were already high due to recent rainfall.

Researchers at Oregon State University are studying the relationship between sunflower sea stars and sea urchins to determine if the reintroduction of the sea stars can help protect declining kelp forests from overgrazing by sea urchins.

Researchers warn the shift can have dire consequences for animals, like penguins, who breed and rear their young on the sea ice while also hastening global warming by reducing how much sunlight is reflected by white ice back into space.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced it was closing the 2023-24 Bering Sea snow crab season for the second season in a row.

A handful of super powerful tropical cyclones in the last decade has a couple of experts proposing a new category of whopper hurricanes: Category 6.

Between 2017 and 2019, pollock surveys in the Gulf of Alaska produced wildly different estimates. A new study shows what climate-driven mismatch in pollock surveys for sustainable fisheries management.

A retired volcanologist recounts his firsthand experience of the 1992 Mount Spurr eruption, describing the dramatic flight over a rising ash plume and the unforgettable moments above the volcano. His narrative highlights both the beauty and inherent risks of volcanic activity.

By Ed Struzik. This article was originally published on Yale Environment 360. Canadian scientist Philip Marsh and I were flying along the coast of the Beaufort Sea, where the frozen tundra had recently opened up into a crater the size of a football stadium. Located along the shoreline of an unnamed lake, the so-called thaw...