Category Archives: Arctic

Climate change made Siberian heatwave 600 times more likely – study

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Scientists say human fingerprint on record temperatures has rarely if ever been clearer

The record-breaking heatwave in the Siberian Arctic was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to a study.

Between January and June, temperatures in the far north of Russia were more than 5C above average, causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse, and sparking an unusually early and intense start to the forest fires season. On 20 June, a monitoring station in Verkhoyansk registered a record high of 38C.

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Russian mining giant admits pumping wastewater into Arctic tundra

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Norilsk Nickel suspends workers at metals plant who dumped the water in ‘flagrant violation of operating rules’

A Russian mining giant said on Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping wastewater into nearby Arctic tundra.

Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta published videos from the scene showing large metal pipes carrying wastewater from the reservoir and dumping foaming liquid among nearby trees.

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Climate crisis: alarm at record-breaking heatwave in Siberia

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Unusually high temperatures in region linked to wildfires, oil spill and moth swarms

A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.

On a global scale, the Siberian heat is helping push the world towards its hottest year on record in 2020, despite a temporary dip in carbon emissions owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Ice-free Arctic summers now very likely even with climate action

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Scientists surprised by latest results but say carbon cuts remain vital to prevent ice loss becoming permanent

The loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic is now very likely before 2050, new research shows, even if the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis are cut rapidly.

The result has alarmed scientists but they said slashing greenhouse gases remained vital as this would determine whether Arctic summer ice vanished permanently or could recover over time. If emissions remain very high, there is a risk the Arctic could be ice-free even in the dark, cold winter months, a possibility described as “catastrophic”.

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Record-size hole opens in ozone layer above the Arctic

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Rare hole is result of low temperatures in atmosphere and is expected to disappear

A rare hole has opened up in the ozone layer above the Arctic, in what scientists say is the result of unusually low temperatures in the atmosphere above the north pole.

The hole, which has been tracked from space and the ground over the past few days, has reached record dimensions, but is not expected to pose any danger to humans unless it moves further south. If it extends further south over populated areas, such as southern Greenland, people would be at increased risk of sunburn. However, on current trends the hole is expected to disappear altogether in a few weeks.

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Newly waterproofed Arctic seed vault hits 1m samples

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Rapid climate change forced urgent upgrade of ‘failsafe’ doomsday storage facility

The Arctic global seed vault has reached the milestone of having 1m varieties stored in its deep freeze. The new deposits are being made after unexpected flooding of its entrance tunnel in 2017 prompted an upgrade.

Seeds from 60,000 crop varieties from across the world are being placed in the vault to back up those held in other seed banks.

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Goldman Sachs to stop financing new drilling for oil in the Arctic

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US bank becomes the first to establish a no-go zone in the oil and gas sector

Goldman Sachs has ruled out future financing of oil drilling or exploration in the Arctic and said it would not invest in new thermal coal mines anywhere in the world.

The new environmental policy, which was released by the US bank on Sunday, was praised by environmentalists, though many warned that it was only a first step.

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The race to lay claim on the Bering Strait as Arctic ice retreats

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Melting sea ice is prompting fevered dreams of ever-easier access, and a renewed jockeying among Arctic nations for status, profit and ownership

I could not keep my eyes off the graves, could not stop staring at them even as I walked away, turning repeatedly to look over my shoulder at them as I slogged my way across the gravel-strewn shore of Beechey Island until they disappeared from view.

It was profoundly saddening to contemplate their presence on a low-lying, windswept outpost of the Canadian Arctic, to imagine the fear and loneliness those buried here must have felt as they faced death in the harshest of conditions, thousands of miles and a world removed from their homes. And yet, they were the lucky ones, the first casualties of an expedition that vanished 173 years ago while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage between Atlantic and Pacific, whose remaining members met their doom after their ships became frozen in never-yielding sea ice, who perished one by one waiting for a summer that never came.

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‘I was peeing and a polar bear popped up!’ Secrets of Seven Worlds, One Planet

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Shooting poachers, circling polar bears, flailing four-tonne seals, singing rhinos and the world’s worst sea … the team behind Attenborough’s latest extravaganza relive their thrills and spills

Chadden Hunter, producer, North America and South America

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Pacific seals at risk as Arctic ice melt lets deadly disease spread from Atlantic

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Study finds seal and sea otter populations in Alaska hit by killer infection that migrated from North Atlantic

A potentially deadly disease affecting marine mammals, including seals and sea otters, has been passed from the North Atlantic Ocean to the northern Pacific thanks to the melting of the Arctic sea ice.

Experts have long been concerned that sea ice melting in the northern oceans, caused by global climate heating, could allow previously geographically limited diseases to be transmitted between the two oceans.

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To the moon and back with the eastern curlew

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Ultra-endurance athlete, aerodynamic wonder … and facing extinction. Why the bird who flies 30,000km a year needs Australia’s mudflats

• Vote for your favourite in the 2019 bird of the year poll

The ascent is vertical. Up, up and into the jet stream. If the conditions are not right up there it will come back down and wait. But if there is a good tailwind in the right direction it will begin an epic journey that will take it around the curvature of the Earth; from the Arctic Circle to the southern hemisphere.

Using the sun and stars as a compass, and navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, recognising landmarks, the far eastern curlew will fly nonstop to the Yellow Sea, where it fuels up on the mudflats of north-east China.

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Melting glaciers reveal five new islands in the Arctic

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Russian navy discovers yet-to-be-named islands previously hidden under glaciers

The Russian navy says it has discovered five new islands revealed by melting glaciers in the remote Arctic.

An expedition in August and September charted the islands, which have yet to be named and were previously hidden under glaciers, said the head of the northern fleet, Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev.

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‘We know they aren’t feeding’: fears for polar bears over shrinking Arctic ice

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Expert Steven Amstrup says ‘the longer the sea ice is gone from the productive zone the tougher it is on the bears’

The loss of Arctic ice from glaciers, polar land and sea is declining faster than many scientists expected, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report on oceans and the cryosphere said this week.

That’s bad news for polar bear populations, a top expert involved in field studies on the endangered animals has told the Guardian.

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Climate scientists prepare for largest ever Arctic expedition

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Hundreds of researchers will spend year on ship improving understanding of sea ice

Researchers from more than a dozen countries are preparing to launch the biggest and most complex expedition ever attempted in the central Arctic – a year-long journey through the ice they hope will improve the scientific models that underpin our understanding of climate change.

In the €140m (£123m) Mosaic expedition, 600 scientists from 19 countries including Germany, the US, Britain, France, Russia and China will work together in one of the most inhospitable regions of the planet.

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Trump’s bid to buy Greenland shows that the ‘scramble for the Arctic’ is truly upon us

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World powers are racing to exploit the vast untapped resources of the Arctic as global heating opens up a new frontier

Donald Trump’s cack-handed attempt to buy Greenland, and the shirty response of Denmark’s prime minister, provoked amusement last week. But it was mostly nervous laughter. The US intervention shone a cold light on a rapidly developing yet neglected crisis at the top of the world – the pillage of the Arctic.

Like the late 19th-century “scramble for Africa”, when European empires expanded colonial control of the continent’s land mass from 10% to 90% in 40 years, the Arctic region is up for grabs. As was the case then, the race for advantage is nationalistic, dangerously unregulated, and harmful to indigenous peoples and the environment.

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Trump plans to open US consulate in Greenland despite row over offer to buy

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  • State details plan to Senate foreign relations committee
  • President cancelled Denmark visit over notion of purchase

The Trump administration is planning to open a US consulate in Greenland for the first time in decades, amid increased strategic and economic interest in the Danish territory.

Related: Sorry, Mr Trump – Greenland’s no go. But can I interest you in our little island? | Jack Bernhardt

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Microplastics ‘significantly contaminating the air’, scientists warn

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Discovery of pollution in snowfall from the Arctic to the Alps leads to call for urgent research on potential human health impacts

Abundant levels of microplastic pollution have been found in snow from the Arctic to the Alps, according to a study that has prompted scientists to warn of significant contamination of the atmosphere and demand urgent research into the potential health impacts on people.

Snow captures particles from the air as it falls and samples from ice floes on the ocean between Greenland and Svalbard contained an average of 1,760 microplastic particles per litre, the research found. Even more – 24,600 per litre on average – were found at European locations. The work shows transport by winds is a key factor in microplastics contamination across the globe.

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Polar cruise boom harming the Arctic, explorer warns

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German adventurer Arved Fuchs says he has seen Inuit villages flooded with gawping tourists – ‘Party ships have no place here’

One of the world’s leading polar explorers has warned against the explosive growth in cruise ship tourism in the Arctic, calling it damaging to both the local environment and its inhabitants.

Arved Fuchs, a German adventurer and the first person to reach both the north and south poles on foot in a year, said: “The number of cruise ships is rising, that’s the crux. And the bigger the ship, the more problematic this is. Party ships have no place in the Arctic,” he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung in an interview.

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Arctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU

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Plume from unprecedented blazes forecast to reach Alaska as fires rage for third month

A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month.

The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.

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