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Articles on Alaska

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Giovanna Stevens grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp on Alaska’s Yukon River. Climate change is interrupting hunting and fishing traditions in many areas. AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Arctic Report Card 2023: From wildfires to melting sea ice, the warmest summer on record had cascading impacts across the Arctic

The early heat melted snow and warmed rivers, heating up the land and downstream ocean areas. The effects harmed salmon fisheries, melted sea ice and fueled widespread fires.
A brown bear in a Siberian boreal forest. Logan Berner

The world’s boreal forests may be shrinking as climate change pushes them northward

How will Earth’s vast boreal forests look in a warmer world? Combining satellite-based research with fieldwork shows that the planet’s largest wilderness may be changing in unexpected ways.
Permafrost and ice wedges have built up over millennia in the Arctic. When they thaw, they destabilize the surrounding landscape. Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Thawing permafrost is roiling the Arctic landscape, driven by a hidden world of changes beneath the surface as the climate warms

Ground is collapsing and massive lakes are draining in a matter of days. Thawing permafrost is having profound effects on the region and its infrastructure.
Washington state was home to some of the nation’s first dispensaries for legalized marijuana. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Legalizing recreational pot may have spurred economic activity in first 4 states to do so

Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon all experienced big increases in both deposits and lending shortly after legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
The Denali Highway as it crosses the Susitna River. Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Infrastructure bill passed by Congress promises billions for bridge repair – rural Alaska shows the growing need as temperatures rise

Alaska is warming faster than any other U.S. state, and that’s causing problems, a team of bridge engineers and social scientists explains. The infrastructure bill in Congress would offer some help.
A helicopter drops water on a forest fire in Alaska. Michael Risinger/U.S. Army National Guard

As extreme fires transform Alaska’s boreal forest, deciduous trees put a brake on carbon loss and how fast the forest burns

A new study finds more deciduous trees like aspen are growing in after severe fires in the region, and that has some unexpected impacts.
Permafrost is thawing across the Arctic, releasing microbes and organic materials that have been trapped in the frozen ground for thousands of years. NOAA via Wikimedia Commons

Thawing permafrost is full of ice-forming particles that could get into atmosphere

New research shows that permafrost contains huge amounts of particles that make it easier for cloud moisture to freeze. Thawing permafrost is releasing these ice-nucleating particles.
A surface coal mine in Gillette, Wyoming, photographed in 2008. Greg Goebel/Flickr

It’s time for states that grew rich from oil, gas and coal to figure out what’s next

The pandemic recession has reduced US energy demand, roiling budgets in states that are major fossil fuel producers. But politics and culture can impede efforts to look beyond oil, gas and coal.
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

100 degrees in Siberia? 5 ways the extreme Arctic heat wave followed a disturbing pattern

The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the planet as a whole, with serious consequences. Scientists have been warning about this for decades.

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