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The Big Melt

Life in the changing Arctic

A red helicopter is shown landed on the Greenland ice sheet with team of three professors and three students unload their gear.

PHOTOS: Up close and personal with Greenland’s massive ice sheet

The Big Melt

Researchers on Greenland’s ice sheet are trying to find out more about our planet and the future implications with rising seas. It’s also spectacularly beautiful and surreal.

Three people walk across ground covered in ice and snow as the horizon stretches behind them.

As Greenland’s ice sheet melts, scientists push to learn ‘how fast’

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A large oil tanker docks amid ice and snow in the Arctic. On the side, the ship's name is written in Russian characters.

An environmental newspaper fights for press freedom in the Russian Arctic

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portrait

As the Arctic warms up, a ‘new ocean’ is bringing new commerce to the top of the world

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sea ice

Ice is us: Alaska Natives face the demise of the Arctic ice pack

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child

The Arctic’s Sámi people push for a sustainable Norway

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After centuries on the margins, the Indigenous Sámi of the Arctic regions of Scandinavia are starting to reassert their cultural identity. And they say the world can’t solve the climate crisis without perspectives like theirs.

A sun sets behind a cloud over a grey body of water

Arctic permafrost is starting to thaw. Here’s why we should all care.

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Just how quickly will billions of tons of carbon locked up in the Arctic’s melting permafrost be released into the atmosphere? Scientists in the Arctic say finding out could be a matter of survival.

A person walks through a puddle in Shismaref, Alaska.

An Alaskan village is falling into the sea. Washington is looking the other way.

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Shishmaref, Alaska, home to a tightly knit Iñpuiat community of 600 people, is ground zero for climate change in the Arctic. What happens here could foreshadow the fates of other US coastal communities. Why won’t Washington pay attention?

Arctic Fox

Take our Arctic quiz

How much do you know about the Arctic? Take our quiz to test your knowledge.

A large concrete sphere sits on a brown hill overlooking a slate blue sea.

In Iceland, a shifting sculpture for a changing Arctic  

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A sculpture in Iceland marks the location of the Arctic Circle — at least the circle’s location this year, because it turns out that the Arctic Circle doesn’t stay in one place. It’s a suggestion of how difficult it is to pin down anything in the Arctic.