Photo showing black skies over the sub-Arctic Verkhoyansk district in the north of Yakutia, Russia, 9 August 2019. The darkness is caused by unusually think cloud formation driven by carbon monoxide from the enormous forest fires in the south of Yakutia. Photo: The Siberian Times

Black skies over Siberia: Sun disappears behind thick clouds in bizarre repeat of 2018 blackout – Giant sub-Arctic wildfires spewing enormous amounts of carbon monoxide

9 August 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Residents of sub-Arctic Verkhoyansk district of Yakutia woke up in complete darkness. There was no trace of light until after 8am local time over the Verkhoyansk district in the north of Yakutia. Almost exactly a year ago – in July 2018 – there was another pitch black morning […]

Breakup of sea ice on the north coast of Greenland, 14-29 July 2019. Photo: Nick Humphrey / NASA Worldview

Siberia forest fires spark potential “disaster” for Arctic – 12 million hectares have burned in Russia this year – “The most important event on the planet right now? Arctic climate chaos.”

30 July 2019 (AFP) – Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, […]

A woman in Kirensk, near Irkutsk, Russia, wears a mask against pollution from nearby wildfires, 29 July 2019. Photo: The Siberian Times

Wildfires and floods rage through Siberia – 3 million hectares burning in Siberia and Russian Far East – Russia declares state of emergency – “Our children are suffocating”

29 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – A series of natural disasters are hitting Siberia, with the latest a dire threat from severe flooding to Baikal – the oldest and deepest lake in the worth, containing 20% of the planet’s unfrozen freshwater. The alert concerns flooding in Baikalsk – where evacuation has begun – and […]

Wildfire at about 64°N in the Mirninsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, 22 July 2019. Photo: Copernicus Sentinel-2 / Pierre Markuse

More than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst-ever fire season – Smoke plumes from huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska visible from space – “These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares”

By Edward Helmore 26 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space. The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have […]

Scatterplot showing key bumblebee flight performance indicator of endurance, distance flown in meters (A) for both the control (red circle) and pesticide‐treated (blue triangle) groups. Graphic: Kenna, et al., 2019 / Ecology and Evolution

Pesticide exposure causes bumblebee flight to fall short – “The negative effects of pesticide exposure on flight endurance have the potential to reduce the area that colonies can forage for food”

By Hayley Dunning 30 April 2019 (Imperial College London) – Bees exposed to a neonicotinoid pesticide fly only a third of the distance that unexposed bees are able to achieve. Flight behaviour is crucial for determining how bees forage, so reduced flight performance from pesticide exposure could lead to colonies going hungry and pollination services […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]

Map of wildfires around Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, 21 July 2019. Graphic: The Siberian Times

Major Siberian cities choking from wildfire smoke

22 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk are suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather. Pictures show the scale of the smoke in major population centres from the raging wildfires with the cause seen mainly as out-of-control forest fires in Krasnoyarsk region, the second largest in Russia. […]

Ohio statewide butterfly population trends of nine resident species with annual variation. Plotted are model predictions for each year based on the fixed effects of year (solid line) and annual random effects (dots) to show annual variation about the trend line. Shading shows 95 percent confidence intervals based on bootstrapped model fits in the poptrend package for the temporal trend and for the annual random effects. The first year’s estimate is set to a value of 1 as a baseline for relative population changes. Graphic: Wepprich, et al., 2019 / PLOS ONE

Decades-long butterfly study shows 33 percent population loss – “These declines in abundance are happening in common species”

By Steve Lundeberg 2 July 2019 CORVALLIS, Oregon (Oregon State University) – The most extensive and systematic insect monitoring program ever undertaken in North America shows that butterfly abundance in Ohio declined yearly by 2%, resulting in an overall 33% drop for the 21 years of the program. Though the study was limited to one […]

Total U.S. managed honey bee colonies loss estimates 2006-2019. For the entire survey period (1 April 2018 – 1 April 2019), beekeepers in the U.S. lost an estimated 40.7 percent of their managed honey bee colonies. This is similar to last year’s annual loss estimate of 40.1 percent, but slightly higher (2.9 percentage points) than the average annual rate of loss reported by beekeepers since 2010-11 (37.8 percent). Graphic: Bee Informed

Nearly 40 percent decline in honey bee population last winter “unsustainable” – Trump administration cuts funding for bee research

By Julia Jacobo 9 July 2019 (ABC News) – Scientists are researching the potential consequences of the rapid decline of the honey bee population in the U.S. and how to mitigate its effects before it causes dire problems for crop management and production. Honey bees are essential for the pollination of flowers, fruits and vegetables, and support about $20 […]

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) play in the trees, along the Yasuni river. Photo: Kimberley Brown / Mongabay

Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni, home to uncontacted tribes, opens for oil drilling – “Their intentions are deceitful. What’s the real commitment the government is making to conserve this area?”

By Kimberley Brown 5 July 2019 QUITO, Ecuador (Mongabay) – Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and distinct biodiversity to flourish. The region is surrounded by towering ceibo and mahogany trees, emblematic of the area, […]

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