Antarctica & Arctic

"The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard has become a key outpost for Arctic science. But geopolitical tensions are complicating research efforts"

"Exceptionally skinny gray whales—enfeebled by starvation and mangled by blunt-force trauma—are washing up this spring along the coast of Washington state in numbers that alarm marine-mammal scientists."

"In northern Norway, Sami people fear a copper mine will disrupt their traditional lifestyles."

"Each summer, Nils Mikkelsen Utsi guides his reindeer to highland pastures overlooking a fjord, known to locals as Repparfjord, in northern Norway. There, under the Arctic midnight sun, female reindeer give birth and Mr. Utsi marks the ears of the calves. His ancestors have done this for generations.

“This is my reindeer district,” he said. “This is my life.”

"The emperor penguin has been declared an endangered species as climate change pushes the icon of Antarctica a step closer to extinction, the global authority on threatened wildlife announced Thursday."

"Vital Arctic sea ice shrank to tie its lowest measured level for the winter, the season when ice grows, as a warming Earth shattered records across the continents."

"Over the past two summers, a pair of remote and treeless volcanic islands in the eastern Bering Sea broadcast signals of climate change danger in the marine ecosystem that feeds Alaska residents and supports much of the state’s economy."

"Ice loss in the Antarctic Ocean may be killing the sea birds during their molting season."

"The increase in marine Arctic traffic, which received increased attention as U.S. President Donald Trump pushed for the United States to take over Greenland, has come with a heavy environmental cost: black carbon, or soot, that spews from ships and makes the ice melt even faster. "

"Scientists say increasing shipping traffic is interfering with the whales’ ability to hunt and communicate. To protect the animals, conservation groups are urging the International Maritime Organization to instate mandatory measures to reduce underwater noise."

"Warming temperatures are forcing Antarctic penguins to breed earlier and that’s a big problem for two of the cute tuxedoed species that face extinction by the end of the century, a study said."