"As the world’s ice sheets have been cracking up and melting down, climatologists have warned that further decimation could cause devastating levels of sea level rise. Now, a recent study shows that ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are melting at a pace on par with the worst-case climate scenarios scientists have predicted, putting coastal communities where millions of people reside at risk."

"The Arctic has seen some weird happenings as the climate crisis reshapes the region, but among the most dramatic was what happened in winter 2018 in the Bering Sea. Despite the inky black days, ice began to peel back from the coast in February. By May, the sea ice cover was basically completely gone a month ahead of schedule."

"Pacific walruses have begun massing onshore in Alaska on a Chukchi Sea beach, one of the earliest of the now-annual congregations at that site yet recorded, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Walruses were spotted on July 29 a beach near the Inupiat village of Point Lay and numbered about 5,000 as of Aug. 5, said Andrea Medeiros, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

"Illegal hunting for meat, fur, and newly grown antlers—along with the warming climate—are depleting wild reindeer on Russia’s Taymyr Peninsula."

"The scene was pure carnage. Dozens of reindeer carcasses were sprawled on the sandy shore of the Khatanga River or floating in the current toward the Arctic Ocean, as if the animals had drowned in mid-stream. The story of what actually befell these reindeer on the Taymyr Peninsula, in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, however, was far more grisly.

"Ice covering the Arctic Ocean reached the lowest level since at least 1979 for July as temperatures spiked in the region, leaving large stretches of Russia’s Siberian coast mostly ice-free."

"How is the climate crisis affecting Siberia's last great reindeer herds — and the people who live and move alongside them? Researchers are working to find out."

"Biologist Egor Kirillin is on a special mission. Deep in the Siberian wilderness in the Russian Republic of Sakha, he waits on the Olenjok river until reindeer come thundering into the water.

"The Trump administration appointed a coordinator for policy in the Arctic on Wednesday, as Washington prepares to compete with Russia and China on resource extraction in a region quickly melting due to climate change."

"For a book project about 16th-century polar explorer William Barents, Andrea Pitzer needed to reach the remote Arctic island where he and his men came to grief. She booked passage on an expeditionary boat out of Murmansk, then headed north on a trip marked by unforgettable scenery, unexpected loss, and wild magic that changed her life."