The cold, hard truth
The Yukon is warming faster than anywhere else in the world. It’s causing irreversible damage to Indigenous communities
Arctic Canada is filling with puddles.
Springtime in the Yukon looks astonishingly similar to June in Ontario. The days are long. Deer bite the heads off flowers deep in the forest. Icy mountains still loom in the distance, but here in the city of Whitehorse, wet mud squishes with every step. People wear shorts and t-shirts. Trucks are parked in nearly every driveway, dried clay caked onto their tires. Spring in Whitehorse is beautiful, if you forget that it comes at the cost of a forever-changed climate.
Continue reading on THIS Magazine.
Mapbiomass, the foundations are laid in the DRC (French)
In its ambition to cover 70% of the world’s tropical forest areas by 2030 by deploying initiatives in 20 tropical countries in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, the Mapbiomass network, with the support of the Central African Forest Satellite Observatory (OSFAC-DRC), has started its activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, identified as a priority country for the deployment of Mapbiomass in Africa.
This is what justified the holding of the workshop on the “presentation of the Mapbiomass initiative and initiation of the process of building the Mapbiomass-DRC Network”.
Read more on Info Environnment.
A siege on science: How Trump is undoing an American legacy
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has slashed federal agencies, canceled national reports, and yanked funding from universities. The shockwaves will be felt worldwide.
Across seven decades and a dozen presidencies, America’s scientific prowess was arguably unmatched. At universities and federal agencies alike, researchers in the United States revolutionized weather forecasting, cured deadly diseases, and began monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. As far back as 1990, Congress directed this scientific might toward understanding climate change, after finding that human-induced global warming posed a threat to “human health, and global economic and social well-being.”
Why New York and New Jersey are at risk of spring wildfires
The wildfire scorching southern New Jersey ignited despite a series of downpours in recent weeks — and the region is ripe for more blazes.
April’s rains didn’t soak into the ground enough to prevent the fire from erupting at the edge of New Jersey’s pine barrens reserve. The blaze — which was allegedly sparked by an improperly extinguished bonfire — has burned 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) and is expected to grow in the coming days.
Read more on Insurance Journal.
With Trump and climate change, denial is a hell of a drug
Trump is trying make a climate report go extinct
Facts can be awfully stubborn things. And they’re especially inconvenient for the Trump administration.
So the president and his goons are simply disappearing them, deleting vast tranches of scientific, health, and other data from federal websites.
Why bother with a debate over the facts when you can fix it so they don’t exist in the first place? It’s much easier to deem racial health disparities a myth if there’s no longer a massive reservoir of government data showing otherwise, for example. And it’s easier to suggest vaccines cause autism if you scrub the data suggesting that theory is a massive and deadly crock.
Nowhere has this approach been clearer than on climate and the environment, where, in its efforts at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry,” the administration has demanded that thousands of datasets be removed from federal websites, including the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, and NASA — or hidden so the public cannot find them.
Read more on The Boston Globe.
Thawing grounds, rising stakes: The importance of including permafrost emissions in climate policy
As the world races to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a critical and often overlooked climate threat looms: the rapid thaw of permafrost in Arctic regions. Permafrost1)—continuously frozen ground that covers vast portions of the Arctic—is thawing, releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) previously locked in frozen soils, amplifying warming at a scale that could derail global climate goals. Current international climate plans put the world on track for a warming of around 2.7°C, far exceeding the Paris Agreement’s target.2) Yet emissions from thawing permafrost remain largely absent from Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the cornerstone of international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. This article explores why permafrost emissions are excluded from NDCs and the consequences of this omission, and proposes concrete steps to ensure that permafrost emissions are fully integrated into future climate strategies. This substantial gap in climate policy threatens Arctic ecosystems and the global effort to stabilize the climate.
Read more on The Arctic Institute website.
Guest commentary: We must stand together
Falmouth is more than just a picturesque coastal town; it is a vibrant village of discovery built over decades around the pillars of science, education and environmental stewardship. In the same way, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Woodwell Climate Research Center and Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) are not just esteemed institutions, but integral parts of our community.
Continue reading on The Falmouth Enterprise.
Arctic sea ice hits record low for its usual peak growth period
Arctic sea ice had its weakest winter buildup since record-keeping began 47 years ago, a symptom of climate change that will have repercussions globally, scientists said Thursday.
The Arctic reaches its maximum sea ice in March each year and then starts a six-month melt season. The National Snow and Ice Data Center said the peak measurement taken Saturday was 5.53 million square miles (14.33 million square kilometers) — about 30,000 square miles (80,000 square kilometers) smaller than the lowest previous peak in 2017.
That’s a difference about the size of California.