This Arctic heat wave has been unusually long-lived. The darkest reds on this map of the Arctic are areas that were more than 14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the spring of 2020 compared to the recent 15-year average.
Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory
Alaska has been mostly spared from the virus, but the outbreak’s impact on its economy could still be catastrophic because of its reliance on seasonal tourism.
The January 2019 collapse of a dam in Brumadinho, Brazil, sent mining tailings and mud over the landscape for miles, destroying this bridge and killing 300 people.
Andre Penner/AP
Dams built to hold enormous quantities of toxic mining waste have a long history of spills. Decisions in the Pacific Northwest threaten three free-flowing rivers there.
New York’s offer of incentives to Amazon to open a headquarters in the state faced significant opposition.
AP Photo/Karen Matthews
In 1867, the US bought Alaska from Tsar Alexander II for a tidy sum of $7.2 million. Trump probably wouldn’t be able to get that kind of bargain for Greenland.
Smoke from wildfires in Siberia drifts east toward Canada and the U.S. on July 30, 2019.
NASA
A researcher based in Fairbanks, Alaska, links 2019’s record-breaking wildfires in far northern regions of the world to climate change, and describes what it’s like as zones near her city burn.
A view of University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Gary Whitton/Shutterstock.com
How did Alaska, one of the richest states in the Union, end up with budget cuts that lawmakers on both sides say could wreck the state’s future? One answer’s found in three letters: PFD.
A decade-long project to excavate a sod house from half a millennium ago has yielded nearly 100,000 artefacts.
A polar bear crosses ice In Alaska’s Chukchi Sea area, where a recent court ruling bars the Trump administration from greenlighting offshore drilling.
NOAA/OER/Hidden Ocean 2016:The Chukchi Borderlands
Can presidents undo decisions by their predecessors to protect federal lands from development? A recent court ruling on offshore drilling says no, and could also affect contested lands in Utah.
Much of our scientific knowledge comes from just two regions in Alaska and Sweden.
2016’s warm winter meant not enough snow for the start of the Iditarod sled dog race in Anchorage, so it was brought by train from 360 miles north.
AP/Rachel D'Oro
For everyone from traditional hunters to the military, the National Park Service to the oil industry, climate change is the new reality in Alaska. Government, residents and businesses are all trying to adapt.
Dance is a unique way of passing on cultural stories to a younger generation.
Aaron Hawkins/Flickr.com
Climate change is transforming the Arctic, with impacts on the rest of the planet. A geographer explains why he once doubted that human actions were causing such shifts, and what changed his mind.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to a great diversity of wildlife – one reason environmentalists oppose oil and gas drilling.
US Fish and Wildlife Service
Alaska and oil proponents are cheering a move to open up an ecologically sensitive part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling – a position environment supporters can’t abide.
A brown bear snags a sockeye salmon in Alaska. In warm years, red elderberries ripen early and Kodiak bears leave streams full of salmon to eat them.
Jonathan Armstrong
Climate change is making berries ripen early in Kodiak, Alaska, luring bears away from eating salmon. This shift may not hurt the bears, but could have far-reaching impacts on surrounding forests.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, Nov. 3, 2012.
AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo
Sea otters had been absent from this Alaskan national park for at least 250 years. By marrying math and statistics, scientists map this animal’s successful comeback.
Oil production used to fall when prices were low. But a new drilling boom in Alaska, driven by technical advances and global partnerships, spotlights America’s rise as a world oil power.