Search Results

Should we say farewell to the Arctic's unique nature?

Temperatures are rising faster in the Arctic than any other place on Earth. If these changes continue, it is likely that the unique and diverse Arctic tundra will change into a more uniform vegetation dominated by shrubs.

Skinnier but resilient geese thriving in the high Arctic

The world is changing in dramatic ways, especially in the High Arctic. Climate change has meant that spring arrives earlier, but winters have become far more treacherous for Arctic animals that overwinter there, with more rain and ice.

Smoke seasons aren't new but our efforts to control wildfires are, and should change

Like many people, I will remember this summer in shades of gray and red. As snapshots of a dull orange sun circulated social media, "zombie fires" rose from the Russian permafrost, entire towns were wiped off the map and Southern Europe became a scene of the apocalypse.Satellites tracked enormou ...

Starvation deaths of 200 reindeer in Arctic caused by climate crisis, say researchers

Comparable death toll has been recorded only once before, says Norwegian Polar Institute

Statement by Mr. Braulio F. de Souza Dias, CBD Executive Secretary, at the opening of the Arctic Biodiversity Congress, Trondheim, Norway, December 2–4, 2014.

Statement by Mr. Braulio F. de Souza Dias, CBD Executive Secretary, at the opening of the Arctic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas, Helsinki, Finland, 3 – 7 March 2014

Statement by Mr. Braulio F. de Souza Dias, CBD Executive Secretary, at the opening of the Arctic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas, Helsinki, Finland, 3 – 7 March 2014

Student researchers make dismaying microplastics find in the Arctic Ocean

Aboard the Icebreaker Oden, a Swedish vessel on an Artic expedition, a multidisciplinary group of scientists, filmmakers and students, including three City College of New York undergraduates, made a dismaying discovery in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. "Microplastics, a lot of them," said Krys ...

Study shows how varying climate conditions impact vulnerable species

New findings on the diet of Arctic foxes, determined by the condition of their teeth, show how varying climate conditions in the Arctic affect the animals that live there.

Svalbard's Arctic heritage is threatened by climate change

Cultural heritage sites are irreplaceable sources of historical information, providing insight into the social, religious, and economic life of our ancestors. They are important markers of identity, and constitute attractions to both locals and visitors, and can thus play an important role in a ...

Synthesis study demonstrates phytoplankton can bloom below Arctic sea ice

Small photosynthetic marine algae are a key component of the Arctic marine ecosystem but their role for the ecology of the Arctic Ocean have been underestimated for decades. That's the conclusion of a team of scientists who synthesized more than half a century of research about the occurrence, m ...

Testing waters of East Siberian Arctic Ocean suggests origin of elevated methane is reservoir located in Laptev Sea

An international team of researchers has found evidence implicating a deep underground reservoir as the source of high levels of methane in the waters of the East Siberian Arctic Ocean. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes testing three ...

The Arctic Biodiversity Assessment Another Wake Up Call for Action

Montreal, 27 May 2010. The Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) is further evidence of the need for urgent and collaborative action to preserve biodiversity in this fragile and vital region of our planet, recognized as an important barometer of the world’s environment.

The Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI): Protecting Arctic lifestyles through migratory bird conservation

This event will present the latest results on the Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI), a project designed to improve the status and secure the long-term sustainability of declining Arctic breeding migratory bird populations using international cooperation along entire flyways. Responding t ...

The Arctic Ocean began warming decades earlier than previously thought, new research shows

The Arctic Ocean has been warming since the onset of the 20th century, decades earlier than instrument observations would suggest, according to new research.

The Arctic Ocean's deep past provides clues to its imminent future

As the North Pole, the Arctic Ocean, and the surrounding Arctic land warm rapidly, scientists are racing to understand the warming's effects on Arctic ecosystems. With shrinking sea ice, more light reaches the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Some have predicted that this will lead to more plankton, ...

The Arctic is unraveling as climate change intensifies

Rapid climate change is transforming the Arctic, from the bottom of the sea floor to the top of windswept glaciers. Sea ice is disappearing, land-based ice is melting, and a domino effect of ecosystem changes have been set into motion, with unknown results.

The Arctic's tricky quest for sustainable tourism

Home to polar bears, the midnight sun and the northern lights, a Norwegian archipelago perched high in the Arctic is trying to find a way to profit from its pristine wilderness without ruining it.

The Arctic’s Peculiar Ocean Turbulence Puzzled Scientists for Decades – Now MIT Has an Explanation

New study suggests waters will become more turbulent as Arctic loses summertime ice.Eddies are often seen as the weather of the ocean. Like large-scale circulations in the atmosphere, eddies swirl through the ocean as slow-moving sea cyclones, sweeping up nutrients and heat, and transporting the ...

The Arctic’s climate challenge spurs tech innovation

As the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) called on nations to cooperate on mitigating climate change, nowhere is this call more urgent than in the Arctic region.

The Connected Planet: Cooperating to reduce threats to Arctic migratory waterbirds along major flyways

Join representatives from the participating organizations as they discuss migratory Arctic breeding birds, threats originating inside and outside the Arctic, and conservation efforts along major flyways. Hear stories from the East Asian-Australasian flyway, Central Asian Flyway, African-Eurasian ...

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for the Arctic – Scoping Study

To inform CBD audience about progress on the Scoping Study and to increase the awareness and visibility of the project. - A panel discussion -Introduce or reinforce ecosystem values with natural resource managers -Communicate the range of values held for Arctic biodiversity and ecosystems

The Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, applauds the Arctic Partnership announced Thursday by United States President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Washington, D.C.

The Forest Forecast

These are strange times for the Indigenous Nenets reindeer herders of northern Siberia. In their lands on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, bare tundra is thawing, bushes are sprouting, and willows that a generation ago struggled to reach knee height now grow 3 meters tall, hiding the reindeer. Su ...

The Ice Nurseries of the Arctic Are Melting

Ice formed in coastal nurseries along Russia’s Arctic coast is melting before it can float far offshore. Scientists are worried about what that means for wildlife.

The Looming Plastic Pollution Crisis

Recent studies in the Arctic revealed that each litre of sea ice contains around 12,000 particles of microplastic, which scientists believe are being ingested by native animals and marine life.

The Role of Businesses in Environmental Efforts

With decennial arctic ice drops of 13.1 percent and rising temperatures, per NASA figures, more countries and businesses have deemed it imperative to stop or slow down climate change. While adopting ecologically mindful practices would require spending from the private sector,

The fight to preserve the last quiet places on a noisy planet

Natural silence -- the kind when you hear nothing but the sound of nature around you -- is becoming increasingly scarce. The rumblings of man-made noise can be heard even in the remote corners of national parks and deep in the Arctic Ocean.

The heat is on: from the Arctic to Africa, wildlife is being hit hard by climate chaos

Sweating, headaches, fatigue, dehydration – the ways heat exhaustion affects the human body are well documented. As temperatures inch up year by year we need to change the way we live, creating cooler places that provide refuge from heat.

The pace at which the world's permafrost soils are warming

Global warming is causing increasing damage in the world's permafrost regions. As the new global comparative study conducted by the international permafrost network GTN-P shows, in all regions with permafrost soils the temperature of the frozen ground at a depth of more than 10 metres rose by an ...

The race to lay claim on the Bering Strait as Arctic ice retreats

I could not keep my eyes off the graves, could not stop staring at them even as I walked away, turning repeatedly to look over my shoulder at them as I slogged my way across the gravel-strewn shore of Beechey Island until they disappeared from view.

The tiny algae at ground zero of Greenland's melting glaciers

Greenland’s ice melt has been adopted by the world as a bellwether for climate crisis, but the impact on biodiversity has been overlooked. At an ice station on a remote Arctic glacier, scientists are looking to the smallest of life forms to predict the pace of species extinction

The view from up here: Arctic biodiversity in a warming world

The Arctic environment is experiencing unprecedented and rapid change from a variety of stressors that often interact in unpredictable ways. Understanding and responding to current and emerging concerns facing Arctic biodiversity requires coordinated circumpolar scientific information. Panelists ...

The ‘doomsday’ vault that protects the world’s biodiversity is expanding

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a haunting symbol in a warming world. It’s a concrete bank planted deep in the permafrost of Svalbard—a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean—where it protects 986,243 seed species at a permanent zero degrees Fahrenheit. So even if we destroy ourselves and ...

The ‘doomsday’ vault that protects the world’s biodiversity is expanding

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a haunting symbol in a warming world. It’s a concrete bank planted deep in the permafrost of Svalbard—a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean—where it protects 986,243 seed species at a permanent zero degrees Fahrenheit. So even if we destroy ourselves and ...

Through war, wildfire and pandemic, the world’s seed vaults hold strong

By the time the war broke out in Syria, researchers from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) had already duplicated and safely transported most of their genetic treasure trove to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, N ...

To better inform policymakers on what needs to be done to secure the ecosystems and species in the Arctic that people rely on for life and livelihood, the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council, has released the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA).

Traces of antidepressants and painkillers found in crustaceans

Researchers from SINTEF, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University Centre in Svalbard have collected samples from Arctic crustaceans close to the settlement of Ny-Ålesund on the west coast of Spitsbergen. During the spring and summer, they discovered a number of drugs in a variety of diff ...

Tracking of nearctic seabirds surprises scientists with diverse migratory paths from shared breeding site

As the Arctic and the oceans warm due to climate change, understanding how a rapidly changing environment may affect birds making annual journeys between the Arctic and the high seas is vital to international conservation efforts.

U.S. blocking reference to climate change in Arctic conference statement amounts to a ‘moral failure’ says ICC president

The head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) has condemned the United States for blocking any reference to climate change at the end of a conference on the Arctic Tuesday.

UNEP/CBD/ WSTOURIDG/1/2

Report of the Arctic Workshop in the Indigenous Communities, Tourism and Biodiversity Workshop Series: New Information and Web-Based Technologies

UNEP/CBD/COP/9/INF/43

Report of the International Expert Meeting on Responses to Climate Change for Indigenous and Local Communities and the Impact on Their Traditional Knowledge Related to Biological Diversity -The Arctic Region

UNEP/CBD/COP/9/INF/43

Report of the International Expert Meeting on Responses to Climate Change for Indigenous and Local Communities and the Impact on Their Traditional Knowledge Related to Biological Diversity -The Arctic Region

UNEP/CBD/EBSA/WS/2014/1/3

Data to Inform the Arctic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas

UNEP/CBD/EBSA/WS/2014/1/4

Compilation of Submissions of Scientific Information to Describe Areas Meeting the Scientific Criteria for Ebsas in the Arctic Region

UNEP/CBD/EBSA/WS/2014/1/5

Report of the Arctic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas

UNEP/CBD/EM.CC-ILC/1/3

Compilation of Case-Studies on Climate Change and Biodiversity Considerations in the Arctic

UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/15/14

Arctic Biodiversity

UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/18/INF/EBSAWS/2014/1/5

Report of the Arctic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas

UNEP/CBD/WG8J/4/INF/3

Composite Report on the Status and Trends Regarding the Knowledge, Innovations and Practices of Indigenous and Local Communities: Regional report: Arctic