The Arctic Sounder - Serving the Northwest Arctic and the North Slope
The sewage pipes are protected from low temperatures with a heating system that runs on diesel. Throughout December and into January, several communities in the North Slope and Northwest Arctic have been scrambling for diesel, as well as gas and heating oil, essential to thaw pipes, heat homes and run snowmachines.
With cold air, light winds, and clear skies, Kotzebue weather dropped to 44 degrees below zero on Jan. 19 - the lowest temperature in nearly 10 years. The low temperature was followed by a late evening high of 6 above zero. The only greater calendar day increase in the city happened on Feb 18, 2009.
One of the largest caribou herds in Alaska is shrinking, prompting hunters and conservationists to consider recommending hunting restrictions.
This early in spring, the season usually only starts, but the weather patterns have been changing, and so has been the harvest time, Donovan said.
I'm going to start by challenging myself to have more proactive conversations with my teens about climate change, and set some house rules about energy use and what we can do as individuals to reduce our consumption of things like plastics. I don't think it will stop glaciers from melting, but perhaps it will help us all prepare to take larger actions that will.
The issue of erosion is not new to Noatak cemetery. The old cemetery was located near the Noatak's airstrip, but in 1993, the spring breakup caused 30 feet of erosion adjacent to the cemetery. Flooding during the fall of 1994 further threatened the site, so residents relocated 200 graves to the north side of town.
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.
Seven months after flooding damage to a rail link cut off land access from southern Canada to Churchill. Manitoba — Canada's only deepwater Arctic port — government and business officials are still trying to find a permanent solution.
Environmental and economic changes could make it easier for non-native plants and animals to gain a foothold in the North.
The northern Canadian town of Churchill, Manitoba, may be an early casualty of climate change, but it could become an Arctic sustainability pioneer, says Douglas Clark, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrates its first decade in operation by accepting its millionth sample—and a grant for work to keep those samples safe despite melting permafrost.
Natural causes led to the death of more than 1,000 geese on Long Point beach outside Cambridge Bay this past August, a pathologist’s report has found.
The North Water Polynya, between Nunavut and Greenland, is one of the Arctic’s most biologically productive areas — and an important part of the food supply for nearby Inuit communities.
Vitamin D deficiencies have long been a concern in high latitudes because sunlight — which stimulates its production in the body — is scarce in winter months.
The unexpected appearance of sinkholes or groundwater flooding is something to which residents have grown accustomed.
Staff from the governor's office responded and found two bulls entangled on the shore. One lay dead in the water, and another could not move. A third bull had managed to get loose.
T. gondii infection in people was found to be associated with drinking water from home water tanks where T. gondii parasites remained, clinging to the walls—so cleaning of these water tanks would be one way to reduce infection.
New research shows that permafrost soils hold massive quantities of mercury — nearly twice as much as is held in all other soils in the world, plus the mercury in the oceans and the atmosphere —
The animals didn't necessarily become sick, researchers said, but were encountering the new pathogens much more frequently.
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