Tundra News

April 16, 2024

Top Headlines

Boreal Forest and Tundra Regions Worst Hit Over Next 500 Years of Climate Change, Study Shows

Apr. 8, 2024 — Modelling climate change over a 500 year period shows that much of the boreal forest, the Earth's northernmost forests and most significant provider of carbon storage and clean water, could be ...

Arctic Nightlife: Seabird Colony Bursts With Sound at Night

Mar. 15, 2024 — Acoustic recordings of a colony of little auks reveal their nocturnal activities and offer valuable monitoring means for avian biology in the ...

Drought, Soil Desiccation Cracking, and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: An Overlooked Feedback Loop Exacerbating Climate Change

Mar. 13, 2024 — Soil stores 80 percent of carbon on earth, yet with increasing cycles of drought, that crucial reservoir is cracking and breaking down, releasing even more greenhouse gases creating an amplified ...

Study Explores Impacts of Arctic Warming on Daily Weather Patterns in the U.S.

Mar. 11, 2024 — Arctic sea ice is shrinking as the world continues to warm, and a new study may provide a better understanding of how the loss of this ice may impact daily weather in the middle latitudes, like the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 7:22pm EDT

New Radar Analysis Method Can Improve Winter River Safety

Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have developed a way to use radar to detect open water zones and other changes in Alaska's frozen rivers in the early winter. The approach can be automated to provide current hazard maps ...

Open Waste Burning Linked to Air Pollution in Northwestern Greenland

Mar. 28, 2024 — A case study on the effects of open waste burning on air quality in Northwestern Greenland calls attention to the importance of no-one-left-behind sustainable air quality monitoring in the Arctic ...

Exploring Arctic Plants and Lichens: An Important Conservation Baseline for Nunavut's Newest and Largest Territorial Park

Mar. 12, 2024 — A comprehensive study of the floristic diversity of Agguttinni Territorial Park, Nunavut's newest and largest Territorial Park, has documented 141 ...

We Know the Arctic Is Warming -- What Will Changing River Flows Do to Its Environment?

Mar. 5, 2024 — Scientists recently combined satellite data, field observations and sophisticated numerical modeling to paint a picture of how 22.45 million square ...

Arctic Could Become 'Ice-Free' Within a Decade

Mar. 5, 2024 — While summer sea ice loss in the Arctic is inevitable, it can be reversed if the planet cools down, researchers ...

Less Ice in the Arctic Ocean Has Complex Effects on Marine Ecosystems and Ocean Productivity

Mar. 4, 2024 — Most of the sunlight reaching the Arctic Ocean is reflected to space by sea ice, effectively shielding ocean ecosystems from sunlight. As the Arctic ...

Researchers Use GPS-Tracked Icebergs in Novel Study to Improve Climate Models

Mar. 1, 2024 — Research unearthed new information to help scientists better understand circulation patterns of ocean water around glaciers. In the summers of 2014 ...

Chemistry in the Ground Affects How Many Offspring Wild Animals Have

Feb. 28, 2024 — Chemistry in the ground affect how many kids wild animals have Areas with more copper and selenium in the ground lead to higher reproductive success in wild musk oxen in ...

Decline in Microbial Genetic Richness in the Western Arctic Ocean

Feb. 20, 2024 — Researchers analyzed archival samples of bacteria and archaea populations taken from the Beaufort Sea, bordering northwest Canada and Alaska. The samples were collected between 2004 and 2012, a ...

Viruses That Can Help 'Dial Up' Carbon Capture in the Sea

Feb. 19, 2024 — Armed with a catalog of hundreds of thousands of DNA and RNA virus species in the world's oceans, scientists are now zeroing in on the viruses most likely to combat climate change by helping trap ...

Does Russia Stand to Benefit from Climate Change?

Feb. 21, 2024 — There exists a narrative about climate change that says there are winners and losers -- with Russia being one of the countries that stand to benefit from its effects. In a new study, researchers ...

'The Future Is Fungal': New Research Finds That Fungi That Live in Healthy Plants Are Sensitive to Climate Change

Feb. 20, 2024 — Findings more than a decade in the making reveal a rich diversity of beneficial fungi living in boreal forest trees, with implications for the health of ...

Giant Antarctic Sea Spiders Reproductive Mystery Solved

Feb. 18, 2024 — Instead of carrying the babies until they hatched, as in most species of sea spiders, one parent (likely the father) spent two days attaching the eggs to the rocky bottom where they developed for ...

The Role of Jellies as a Food Source in the Arctic Winter

Feb. 14, 2024 — The Arctic is changing rapidly due to climate change. It is not only affected by increasing surface temperatures, but also by warm water from the Atlantic, which is flowing in more and more -- ...

Tawny Owl's Pale Grey Color Linked to Vital Functions Ensuring Survival in Extreme Conditions

Feb. 14, 2024 — A recent genetic discovery has revealed that the pale grey plumage of the tawny owl is linked to crucial functions that aid the bird's survival in cold environments. As global temperatures rise, ...

Frequent Marine Heatwaves in the Arctic Ocean Will Be the Norm

Feb. 13, 2024 — Marine heatwaves will become a regular occurrence in the Arctic in the near future and are a product of higher anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions -- as shown in a new ...

Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Melting -- And Being Replaced by Vegetation

Feb. 13, 2024 — An estimated 11,000 sq miles or 28,707 sq kilometers of Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the last three decades, according to a major analysis of historic satellite ...

Polar Bears Unlikely to Adapt to Longer Summers

Feb. 13, 2024 — More time stranded on land means greater risk of starvation for polar bears, a new study indicates. During three summer weeks, 20 polar bears closely observed by scientists tried different strategies ...

Study Challenges the Classical View of the Origin of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Warns of Its Vulnerability

Feb. 5, 2024 — The Circumpolar Current works as a regulator of the planet's climate. Its origins were thought to have caused the formation of the permanent ice in Antarctica about 34 million years ago. Now, a ...

Permafrost Alone Holds Back Arctic Rivers -- And a Lot of Carbon

Feb. 1, 2024 — A new study provides the first evidence that the Arctic's frozen soil is the dominant force shaping Earth's northernmost rivers, confining them to smaller areas and shallower valleys than ...

Greenland Is a Methane Sink Rather Than a Source

Jan. 31, 2024 — Researchers have concluded that the methane uptake in dry landscapes exceeds methane emissions from wet areas across the ice-free part of Greenland. The results of the new study contribute with ...

War in Ukraine Severely Limits Ability to Track Arctic Climate Change

Jan. 24, 2024 — Scientists no longer have direct access to data from Russian Arctic research stations. Without this data, our view of climate changes in the region is increasingly biased, new research ...

Gulls Swap Natural for Urban Habitats, Machine-Learning Study Finds

Jan. 23, 2024 — The study is the first of its kind to compile a three-year dataset using a citizen science-based, opportunistic research method to include a large sample of gulls and other sub-Arctic birds in urban ...

Uncovering the Secrets Behind the Silent Flight of Owls

Jan. 23, 2024 — Owls produce negligible noise while flying. While many studies have linked the micro-fringes in owl wings to their silent flight, the exact mechanisms have been unclear. Now, a team of researchers ...

New AI Makes Better Permafrost Maps

Jan. 17, 2024 — New insights from artificial intelligence about permafrost coverage in the Arctic may soon give policy makers and land managers the high-resolution view they need to predict climate-change-driven ...

Chasing the Light: Study Finds New Clues About Warming in the Arctic

Jan. 15, 2024 — The Arctic, Earth's icy crown, is experiencing a climate crisis like no other. It's heating up at a furious pace -- four times faster than the rest of our planet. Researchers are pulling ...

A Red Knot's Character Is Formed in First Year of Life

Jan. 10, 2024 — In any group of red knots, respective individuals exhibit a remarkable array of distinct character types. Birds with an exploratory character are motivated to investigate their environment and ...

PFAS Flow Equally Between Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Ocean

Jan. 10, 2024 — The frigid Arctic Ocean is far removed from the places most people live, but even so, 'forever chemicals' reach this remote landscape. Now, research suggests that per- and polyfluoroalkyl ...

Arctic Cold Snap Transforms Into a Blessing

Jan. 5, 2024 — Scientists investigate the influence of Arctic cold air on carbon dioxide uptake of the east ...

Microbial Awakening Restructures High-Latitude Food Webs as Permafrost Thaws

Jan. 3, 2024 — Wildlife biologists used a novel technique to trace the movement of carbon through Arctic and boreal forest food webs and found that climate warming resulted in a shift from plant-based food webs to ...