Category Archives: Arctic

Fears of ‘Chernobyl on ice’ as Russia prepares floating nuclear plant

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Scepticism and safety concerns persist before vessel begins 4,000-mile Arctic journey

“I feel like I’m one of the first cosmonauts going into space,” said Vladimir Irminku, one of the chief engineers of the Akademik Lomonosov, as he stood on the deck of the giant, box-like platform on a chilly summer morning at Kola Bay in the Barents Sea.

Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion.

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Starvation deaths of 200 reindeer in Arctic caused by climate change, say researchers

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Comparable death toll has been recorded only once before, says Norwegian Polar Institute

About 200 reindeer have been found dead from starvation in the Arctic archipelago Svalbard, an unusually high number, the Norwegian Polar Institute has said, pointing the finger at climate change.

During an annual census of the wild reindeer population on the group of islands about 1,200km (746 miles) from the north pole, three researchers from the institute identified the carcasses of about 200 deer believed to have starved to death last winter.

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Wildfires: blazes rage in Arctic during severe heatwave – video

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The Arctic Circle is suffering from an unprecedented number of wildfires in the latest sign of a climate crisis. With some blazes the size of 100,000 football pitches, vast areas in Siberia, Alaska and Greenland are engulfed in flames. The World Meteorological Organisation has said these fires emitted as much carbon dioxide in a month as the whole of Sweden does in a year

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‘Unprecedented’: more than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst ever season

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Huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska are producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space

The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space.

The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have burned in the Arctic circle. In Russia, 11 of 49 regions are experiencing wildfires.

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Fantastic arctic fox: animal walks 3,500km from Norway to Canada

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Epic journey by female fox includes fastest movement rate for species ever recorded

An arctic fox has walked more than 3,500km (2,000 miles) from Norway to Canada in just 76 days, astonishing researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

The animal, known as a coastal or blue fox, was fitted with a tracking device in July 2017. It left Spitsbergen in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago on 26 March 2018. After 21 days and 1,512 km out on the sea ice, it landed in Greenland on 16 April 2018. Its journey continued to Ellesmere Island in Canada, where it arrived on 1 July.

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Polar bear found hundreds of miles from home in Russian industrial city – video

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Residents of Norilsk in northern Siberia have been stunned by the sight of a starving polar bear hundreds of miles from its natural Arctic habitat. People captured footage of the bear as it searched a garbage dump for food. The climate crisis has been damaging polar bears’ sea-ice habitats and forced them to scavenge more for food on land, bringing them into contact with humans and inhabited areas

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Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted

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  • Ice blocks frozen solid for thousands of years destabilized
  • ‘The climate is now warmer than at any time in last 5,000 years’

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

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Photograph lays bare reality of melting Greenland sea ice

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Research teams traversing partially melted fjord to retrieve weather equipment release startling picture

Rapidly melting sea ice in Greenland has presented an unusual hazard for research teams retrieving their oceanographic moorings and weather station equipment.

A photo, taken by Steffen Olsen from the Centre for Ocean and Ice at the Danish Meteorological Institute on 13 June, showed sled dogs wading through water ankle-deep on top of a melting ice sheet in the country’s north-west. In the startling image, it seems as though the dogs are walking on water.

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The end of the Arctic as we know it

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Less oxygen and ice, more acid and heat. Jonathan Watts joins an expedition studying what this means for the planet

The demise of an entire ocean is almost too enormous to grasp, but as the expedition sails deeper into the Arctic, the colossal processes of breakdown are increasingly evident.

The first fragment of ice appears off the starboard bow a few miles before the 79th parallel in the Fram strait, which lies between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The solitary floe is soon followed by another, then another, then clusters, then swarms, then entire fields of white crazy paving that stretch to the horizon.

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Canadian Arctic fossils are oldest known fungus on Earth

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Fungus is half a billion years older than previous record holder found in Wisconsin

Tiny fossils found in mudrock in the barren wilderness of the Canadian Arctic are the remains of the oldest known fungus on Earth, scientists say.

The minuscule organisms were discovered in shallow water shale, a kind of fine-grained sedimentary rock, in a region south of Victoria island on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

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US warns Beijing’s Arctic activity risks creating ‘new South China Sea’

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  • Secretary of state chides China’s ‘aggressive behaviour’
  • Pompeo also accuses Russia of ‘provocative actions’

The US plans to beef up its Arctic presence to keep Russia’s and China’s “aggressive behaviour” in check in the resource-rich region, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has warned

“The region has become an arena of global power and competition” owing to vast reserves of oil, gas, minerals and fish stocks, Pompeo said in a speech in northern Finland.

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Trump halts plans to expand offshore drilling after legal setback

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Court decision blocking fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic complicated administration plans to ramp up fossil fuel extraction

The Trump administration has shelved plans to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling in the wake of a recent court decision that blocked fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic.

The administration had opened up almost all US waters to companies seeking to drill oil or gas deposits but this expansion has been halted due to a legal setback, according to David Bernhardt, the interior secretary.

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Polar bear found 700km from home in Russian village – video

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Residents of a village in Russia have been stunned by the sight of a polar bear 700km from its usual habitat. The people of the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula looked on as the bear searched for food. Russian media reported on Wednesday that the exhausted-looking animal apparently travelled from Chukotka to the village of Tilichiki, about 700km (434 miles) south. Environmentalists say the bear may have lost its sense of direction while drifting on an ice floe

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‘Exhausted’ polar bear found 700km from home in Russian village

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Environmental activists have blamed climate change for appearance of polar bear in the Kamchatka Peninsula

Residents of a village in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula have been stunned by the sight of a polar bear prowling for food hundreds of miles from its usual habitat.

Russian media reported on Wednesday that the exhausted-looking animal apparently traveled from Chukotka to the village of Tilichiki on Kamchatka, some 700km (434 miles) south.

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Russian islands declare emergency after mass invasion of polar bears

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Experts deployed to remove dozens of hungry bears besieging Novaya Zemlya

Analysis: what the polar bears reveal about the climate crisis

Russian environmental authorities have deployed a team of specialists to a remote Arctic region to sedate and remove dozens of hungry polar bears that have besieged the people living there.

The move came after officials in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, with a population of about 3,000 people, appealed for help.

“There’s never been such a mass invasion of polar bears,” said Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration. “They have literally been chasing people.”

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Polar express: magnetic north pole moving ‘pretty fast’ towards Russia

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Updates on its location – essential for everything from consumer electronics to runway names – are coming thick and fast

Earth’s north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in recent decades that scientists say that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation. On Monday, they released an update of where magnetic north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic north pole is moving about 34 miles (55 kilometres) a year. It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

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Feel the chill: icy examples of polar vortex in US – video

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Frozen winds have brought record-low temperatures to the US midwest as a blast of Arctic air, known as the polar vortex, unnerves residents accustomed to brutal winters... Wet clothes freeze after 10 minutes, ice arrives after a hot shower and ships break their way through the Chicago River

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Genes linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in Arctic

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Discovery of genes, possibly carried by birds or humans, shows rapid spread of crisis

Genes associated with antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been discovered in the high Arctic, one of the most remote places on earth, showing the rapid spread and global nature of the resistance problem.

The genes were first identified in a hospital patient in India in 2007-8, then in surface waters in Delhi in 2010, probably carried there by sewage, and are now confirmed in soil samples from Svalbard in the Arctic circle, in a paper in the journal Environment International. They may have been carried by migrating birds or human visitors, but human impact on the area is minimal.

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Military buildup in Arctic as melting ice reopens northern borders

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As ice melts and shipping lanes open up, geopolitical tensions are growing and old cold war bases are being reopened

The climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders that were until recently reinforced by a continental-sized division of ice.

That so-called unpaid sentry is now literally melting away, opening up shipping lanes and geo-security challenges, said delegates at the Arctic Frontiers conference, the polar circle’s biggest talking shop, who debated a series of recent escalations.

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