Gas pipelines supplying Europe “in real danger from exploding tundra” warns scientist

10 July 2017 (The Siberian Times) – New analysis by satellite and helicopter shows  gas pipelines run right over swelling tundra which is deeply unstable due to the release of underground methane that had been frozen in permafrost – now thawing – for thousands of years, revealed Russia’s leading expert on the new phenomenon, Professor […]

Fires rise in Arctic as “lightning follows the warming”

By Scott Waldman 27 June 2017 (Climatewire) – Climate change is driving up the number of forest fires ignited by lightning, and it’s pushing them farther north, to the edges of the Arctic tundra, researchers say. Lightning-caused fires have risen 2 to 5 percent a year for the last four decades, according to a paper […]

“Big bang” and “pillar of fire” as latest of two new craters forms this week in the Arctic

2 July 2017 (The Siberian Times) – Scientists have located two fresh craters formed on Yamal peninsula this year, with the latest exploding on 28 June with the eruption picked up by new seismic sensors specifically designed to monitor such events, The Siberian Times can disclose. First pictures of the large craters – or funnels […]

Hundreds of huge craters discovered in floor of the Arctic Ocean

By Sarah Zhang 1 June 2017 (The Atlantic) – When Karin Andreassen set out for the Barents Sea, she knew she would find a lot of methane. The cold, shallow body of water just north of Norway meets Russia is home to oil and gas fields, and methane—the main component of natural gas—naturally seeps out […]

Faced with global warming, Canadian Arctic residents fear their way of life is melting away

By Carrie Swiggum 15 May 2017 (PRI) – The territory of Nunavut lies in the northernmost reaches of the globe. Iqaluit, the capital, is just 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. And it’s warming at twice the global rate. There are now shrubs where once there was only ice. The town’s buildings were designed […]

Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts – “This is supposed to last for eternity”

By Damian Carrington19 May 2017 (The Guardian) – It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures […]

Thawing Alaska permafrost sends autumn CO2 emissions surging – “Tundra soils appear to be acting as an amplifier of climate change”

By Bob Berwin8 May 2017 (InsideClimate News) – Soaring temperatures in the Arctic have triggered a huge seasonal surge in carbon dioxide emissions from thawing permafrost and may be tipping the region toward becoming a net source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, a new study shows. Even into early winter, when the ground would have been […]

Global warming could destroy far more Arctic permafrost than we thought – “The current pattern of permafrost reveals the sensitivity of permafrost to global warming”

By Chelsea Harvey 10 April 2017 (The Washington Post) – Climate change could cause another 4 million square kilometers, or about 1.5 million square miles, of permafrost to disappear with every additional degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming, a new study suggests. The estimate, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate […]

Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

BY Bob Berwyn28 February 2017 (InsideClimate News) – Huge slabs of Arctic permafrost in northwest Canada are slumping and disintegrating, sending large amounts of carbon-rich mud and silt into streams and rivers. A new study that analyzed nearly a half-million square miles in northwest Canada found that this permafrost decay is affecting 52,000 square miles […]

Lake Baikal sponge has died out completely in several areas

By Olga Gertcyk20 December 2016 (The Siberian Times) – In just two years, since the sponge was last surveyed, it has entirely vanished in the area around popular tourist resort Listvyanka and Cape Tolsty, in Irkutsk region, and over a wide area in the north of the crescent-shaped lake which contains around 20% of the […]

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