Last week, a 908-foot Russian tanker carrying liquified natural gas passed south through the Russian side of the Bering Strait, with two more to follow. The ships are traversing the northern coast of Siberia, called the North Sea Route, in the middle of January with no icebreaker escort, an unprecedented event that may hint at the future of the region as climate change alters global commerce.
Three researchers from the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center completed a trawl survey of the Northern Bering Sea in 2017 and found a dramatic increase in pollock.
Two more Russian LNG tankers made history earlier this month passing through the North Sea Route, which extends along the northern coast of Russian Asia, in late January, the latest commercial ship
About a month ago, residents of St. Lawrence Island found a patch of oily, white goo on the beach, along with some dead sea birds covered in the substance.
The appearance of walrus on the ice off Nome added some excitement to the onset of spring.
Alaska Sea Grant agent Gay Sheffield from Nome responded to report of a dead bowhead and a dead grey whale northeast of Shishmaref near Cape Espenburg.
A series of low pressure systems swept through western and northwestern Alaska beginning December 28 until things calmed down on January 2, leaving sections of villages without power and communicat
The rusty tussock moth has invaded the tundra in the Nome area, an infestation of the species not seen this far north before.
When young Jack James looked out the window of his home at Anvil Mountain on June 7, he saw a red squirrel.
The “thermal curtain” is another expression for “cold pool” that acts as a barrier to keep some species—pollock and Pacific cod, for example — from migrating across the eastern Bering Sea shelf and northward toward the Bering Strait. For the first time in 37 years of surveying the Bering Sea, we could not find the cold water barrier.
Severe erosion at the Nome River mouth has cost Rita Hukill and her family most of their land at their campsite at Fort Davis.
Public health officials confirmed that four Nome residents had been hospitalized in early January with preliminary results pointing to poising from foodborne type E botulism from an aged beluga flipper.
A biologist peers into his collection jar to find an example of the green caterpillars that have been dining on willow bushes, making brown batches on the landscape in and about Nome.
The snowfall in Nome over the winter didn’t break the all-time record but it came close. According to the National Weather Service, 115.5 inches of snow fell, making the winter of 2017/18 number two for snowfall since modern weather reporting began.
It seems like digging out from snow and some more snow is all Nomeites do this winter.
Walruses were found washed up on the beaches from Cape Espenberg to Shishmaref and further west. Samples taken from the intestines of four walrus all had moderate to high levels of saxitoxin.
On Sunday, Austin Ahmasuk went along the beach to his camp at the Sinuk River, about 28 miles from Nome, and shortly after hitting West Beach past the port, he found one dead seabird on the shore.
Last Tuesday, February 20, residents of Little Diomede have seen the impossible. Instead of looking out at a frozen seascape of ice, they witnessed open water and high surf crashing onto the shores and coming up beyond the high water line.
The virus was first reported among brown skua on Bird Island, off South Georgia. Since then, researchers and observers have reported mass deaths of elephant seals, as well as increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua at several other sites. Researchers warn of one of ‘largest ecological disasters of modern times’ if the highly contagious disease reaches penguin colonies.
Federal officials declared a water shortage for the Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the US. It will trigger mandatory water cuts to several western states starting next year.
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