Historical data on beavers’ Arctic expansion are lacking, but tree rings are shedding light on the timeline.

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is expanding its distribution in the Arctic tundra. Due to the species' capacity to engineer ecosystems, they can transform surface water dynamics and bi...

New research confirms that North America’s most famous rodents are taking new territory, changing the landscape as they go

Arctic sea-ice loss affects biological productivity, sustenance in coastal communities, and geopolitics. Forecasting these impacts requires mechanistic understanding of how Arctic sea ice responds to ...

Donald Prothero takes readers on a sweeping 4.5-billion-year journey that reveals the intimate ties between climate and life.

Driftwood plays a key role in Arctic coastal ecosystems: it stores carbon, stabilises coastlines and provides a habitat for animals. At the same time, it can offer clues regarding climate change in the Arctic region, providing information on the likes of storm surges, coastal erosion and shifting fluvial dynamics. Despite the crucial role it plays, there is still a lot that we do not know about the large-scale distribution patterns of driftwood. Now, for the first time, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute have systematically mapped driftwood deposits along an 11,000 kilometre stretch of coastline in Alaska and North West Canada, using satellite imagery and AI-powered evaluation methods. The result is the largest database ever produced, with researchers able to identify over 19,000 stable driftwood deposits. The findings will soon be published in the Scientific Reports journal.

Arctic driftwood transport and deposition is determined by sea ice and surface current dynamics; making it a robust proxy for Holocene sea ice reconstructions The first pan-Arctic collation of Holo...

The world's frozen oceans keep the planet cool, but they currently have less ice than ever recorded before.

In the frigid reaches of northern Norway, a curious phenomenon in tree rings is helping scientists uncover the climatic impact of distant volcanic eruptions from over a century ago. Researchers have discovered that unusually cold summers leave behind distinctive blue-tinted rings in trees and shrubs, providing a natural archive of historical temperature drops. The study, published in Frontiers in Plant Science…

How the carbon stocks of the Arctic–Boreal Zone change with warming is not well understood. Here the authors show that wildfires and large regional differences in net carbon fluxes offset the overall ...

Commentary authors write of the Arctic Report Card that gases released by wildfires and thawing tundra add to human-produced emissions.

Anglia Ruskin University's Wildlife Change in the Arctic project examines the causes and consequences of North American beaver expansion. Read more.

This year’s out-of-control blazes released 2bn tonnes of CO2 – probably triple the country’s annual carbon footprint