#siberia

#siberia

The study highlights how rapid Arctic warming increases the frequency of extreme weather events, particularly concurrent heatwaves across Europe and eastern Asia.

Rather than imposing itself on this remote terrain, the resort scatters a constellation of compact, sphere-fronted cabins across the landscape, each one placed with surgical intention over patches of degraded sand where vegetation has long struggled to take root. By positioning guest suites directly atop eroding sand depressions, the architects aim to arrest soil loss and give the steppe a chance to regenerate beneath and around the structures.

About fifteen kilometres northwest from Kitamaat is Kitimat, the industrial town that the global mining group Alcan (acquired by Rio Tinto in 2007) carved from the rainforest in the 1950s to house workers and support the needs of its aluminum smelter.

Juha Kujala no longer knows how many reindeer will return to his farm from the forest each December. The 54-year-old herder releases his animals into the wilderness on the 830-mile Finnish-Russian border each spring to grow fat on lichens, grass and mushrooms, just as his ancestors have done for generations. But since 2022, grisly discoveries of reindeer skeletons on the forest floor have disrupted this ancient way of life.

He had flown in from Mar-a-Lago and, he told me, was there to observe. The next day, he watched as Åsa Rennermalm, a Rutgers University professor who studies polar regions, sat onstage with European foreign ministers and spoke out against cuts to U.S. science funding. "A leading US Arctic scientist is on stage absolutely ripping her country to the delight of the audience," Dans wrote on X. "Embarassing." He punctuated his post with an American-flag emoji.

Recently, Anchorage, Alaska's largest city with nearly 400,000 residents, has just recorded its snowiest January on record. Tucked in between the mighty Cook Inlet and pushed right up against the Chugach Mountains, Anchorage sits in prime location for some serious snow totals. Moisture from pacific storms builds up over the inlet, and thanks to orographic lift caused by the mountains, forces that moisture to drop over Anchorage. Thanks to Alaska's northernly location, that moisture often falls in the form of snow.

A record-breaking snowfall event unfolded in far eastern Russia last week when the town of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, located on the Kamchatka peninsula's east coast, received more than 1.8 metres (6 feet) of lying snow in places. Strong winds accompanying the snowfall caused extreme drifting of more than 3 metres against buildings and cars. Two key ingredients combined to cause such an extreme snowfall event. Strong Pacific low pressures dragged moist air from the tropics northwards, which clashed with cold Arctic air already over the region. Conveyor belts of tropical air are called atmospheric rivers and often bring heavy rainfall to places such as California.

SODANKYLÄ, Finland - Deep snow. Fleeting daylight. Wet clothes. Frozen weapons. Sub-zero temperatures. NATO soldiers training in Arctic warfare are learning that in a future conflict, fighting the enemy may be only half the battle. The other would be surviving the region's harsh winters. "The environment can be hard for someone who is not used to it," said Finnish Lt. Laura Lähdekorpi, bundled up and dressed in camouflage to blend in with the snow.

Global warming is thawing the Arctic and igniting a high-stakes race for the riches beneath its ice. Global warming is heating up the Arctic, and global powers like the United States, Russia and China are manoeuvring to stake a claim to the resources under its melting ice. Some experts say the region, once known as an exception an island of international cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggles is becoming the site of a second cold war.

Travelers to Alaska have a lot of ground to cover; the state holds 665,000 square miles of land that includes volcanic islands, Arctic tundra, glaciers, and temperate rainforest. Yet in winter, some of the state's most compelling scenery can be experienced in a week aboard the Alaska Railroad. The railroad's weeklong Aurora Winter Train "showcases the best of winter in Alaska," including easy access via Anchorage, a sled dog tour with an Iditarod champion,

It has been an eventful few months for the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. An unusually early sudden stratospheric warming episode in late November appears to have factored into a weakened and distorted polar vortex at times in December, likely causing extra waviness in the polar jet stream. This helped fuel extensive intrusions of frigid air into the mid-latitudes, contributing to cold snaps in North America, Europe, and Asia, and priming the atmosphere for disruptive winter storms in January.

In the pristine High Arctic sits the Kitsissut island cluster, also known as the Carey Islands, nestled between northwest Greenland and northeast Canada. The surrounding seas are perilous, and traveling there is difficult even with modern boats. But new archaeological evidence suggests ancient humans managed to sail to the islands, too. Early settlers lived on the islands between 4,500 and 2,700 years ago.

I open the faucet and water gushes out, frothing as it fills a bright blue twenty-litre plastic jug, its faded sticker declaring BUILT TOUGH. You've probably seen one in the outdoors aisle at Canadian Tire: a cubic jug with a red or white screw-top faucet and a built-in handle for convenience. Most Canadians would associate the blue jug with camping trips.

Consider the Kamchatka Peninsula, a Russian territory that reaches into the Pacific Ocean north-east of Japan, which has been battling with record amounts of snow this winter. On January 16 alone, a small city on the peninsula's southern coast, called Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, experienced a baffling five and a half feet of snow, effectively burying local residents and their cars completely. Some areas saw more than six and a half feet in just the first half of January.

When a city or country is in the spotlight, it's logical to expect an uptick of interest in visiting there. Each of the locations where a season of The White Lotus was filmed has seen a corresponding increase in tourism, for instance. Being the subject of news headlines and heated negotiations isn't quite the same thing as being the setting for a prestige TV series, but recent data suggests that Greenland is also seeing more international visitors than usual.

The Northeast Passage was expected to open first due to the Coriolis effect. As the world turns to the east, in the Northern hemisphere, flowing water will veer to the right. Warm, salty Atlantic water flows into the Arctic Ocean through the Barents Sea Opening between Norway and Svalbard, and the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland, then bends right along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia.

Polar bears are the poster children of climate changeand for good reason. These giant bears hunt, mate and spend their days hanging out on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing as the climate warms. But some polar bears, it seems, are far more resilient than we realized: new research suggests that in one region, the bears are adapting to the declining sea ice.

Decades of successful scientific collaboration could be at risk if Europe-US political relations continue to fray over trade and defense issues. For more than 30 years, Arctic nations have worked together across the physical, biological and social sciences to understand one of the world's fastest changing regions. Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost around 33,000 square miles of sea ice each year roughly the same area as Czechia.