Purple saxifrage, snow pearlwort and drooping saxifrage (left to right). Sarah Watts, Author provided When most people consider the arctic, or high-altitude mountain landscapes, they think of endless snow, ice and bare rock. But pastel-coloured flowers, sometimes just a few millimetres wide, bloom in these dramatic places too. The miniature flowers not only weather some of the toughest habitats on Earth, but can also help engineer the landscape for other species. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. Don’t be fooled by their delicate petals. Some specie ..read more

Kivalina sits on a narrow barrier island on the Chukchi Sea. Joe Raedle/Getty Images As winds and waves from Typhoon Merbok devastated communities along the coast of Western Alaska in 2022, Reppi Swan Sr.’s phone began to ring at Kivalina, a barrier island 80 miles above the Arctic Circle. A neighboring family had lost 3 feet of land to the rumbling lagoon, and their home was now sitting just 6 feet from the angry water’s edge. Reppi called his brother Joe Swan Jr. and quickly slid into his insulated rain gear. As a volunteer first responder, Reppi plans for emergencies like this. He and his w ..read more

Last summer, we travelled to the remote Arctic Hausgarten observatory area in the eastern Fram Strait (west of Svalbard, Norway) on a research ship. The samples we collected there included ice cores, sea water and ice algae from large packs of floating ice called ice floes. These form 1–2 metre thick “plates” of sea ice across the Arctic Ocean, some of which melt over the summer period. Algae grow on the underside of these ice floes. Melosira arctica – nicknamed “snot” due to its sticky, slimy and green nature – is one of the major algae species in the Arctic Ocean. It is an essential organism ..read more

The roaming Steller's sea eagle in Georgetown, Maine, Jan. 1, 2022. Dominic Sherony/Flickr, CC BY-SA The Steller’s sea eagle is one of the largest and most aggressive raptors in the world. With an 8-foot wingspan and striking white markings, these birds tower over their bald eagle cousins. Steller’s are sublime, but they aren’t beautiful in the way people often sentimentalize animals. Most adult Steller’s survived by beating their weaker sibling to death in the nest within weeks of birth and were rewarded for their aggression by nurturing parents. No wonder they can fight off brown bears and h ..read more

Kivalina sits on a narrow barrier island on the Chukchi Sea. Joe Raedle/Getty Images As winds and waves from Typhoon Merbok devastated communities along the coast of Western Alaska in 2022, Reppi Swan Sr.’s phone began to ring at Kivalina, a barrier island 80 miles above the Arctic Circle. A neighboring family had lost 3 feet of land to the rumbling lagoon, and their home was now sitting just 6 feet from the angry water’s edge. Reppi called his brother Joe Swan Jr. and quickly slid into his insulated rain gear. As a volunteer first responder, Reppi plans for emergencies like this. He and his w ..read more

Kivalina sits on a narrow barrier island on the Chukchi Sea. Joe Raedle/Getty Images As winds and waves from Typhoon Merbok devastated communities along the coast of Western Alaska in 2022, Reppi Swan Sr.’s phone began to ring at Kivalina, a barrier island 80 miles above the Arctic Circle. A neighboring family had lost 3 feet of land to the rumbling lagoon, and their home was now sitting just 6 feet from the angry water’s edge. Reppi called his brother Joe Swan Jr. and quickly slid into his insulated rain gear. As a volunteer first responder, Reppi plans for emergencies like this. He and his w ..read more

Red-breasted geese breed mainly on Russia’s Taymyr Peninsula and migrate to areas adjacent to the Black Sea in Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. Daniel Mitev, CC BY-ND The Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 has sent economic, social and political shock waves around the world. In a newly published policy brief, we and other researchers and conservation scientists describe how these effects extend to biodiversity conservation efforts far beyond Ukraine. Animals, plants and ecosystems don’t recognize political boundaries, so protecting them often requires international cooperation ..read more

Rain and warm air make it harder for sea ice to grow. Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images Atmospheric rivers, those long, powerful streams of moisture in the sky, are becoming more frequent in the Arctic, and they’re helping to drive dramatic shrinking of the Arctic’s sea ice cover. While less ice might have some benefits – it would allow more shipping in winter and access to minerals – sea ice loss also contributes to global warming and to extreme storms that cause economic damage well beyond the Arctic. I’m an atmospheric scientist. In a new study of the Barents-Kara Seas an ..read more

Researchers have found evidence that primates colonised northern Canada 52 million years ago. Kaca Skokanova/Shutterstock Two new species of prehistoric primate were recently identified by scientists studying fossils from Canada’s Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic. The primates are closely related and likely originated from a single colonisation event, following which they split into two species: Ignacius dawsonae and Ignacius mckennai. At 52 million years old, they represent the most recent known members of their genus. The primates colonised the high latitudes during a period of historic g ..read more

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Defence Minister Anita Anand join U.S. officials in a NORAD briefing at the North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., in June 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has often struggled for political and military attention. This unique Canada-United States military command is in the spotlight right now because of growing tensions among the U.S., Russia and China. Both the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2022 and Canada’s 2017 Stron ..read more