Beyond the Arctic Circle lies a winter wonderland of snow, sea ice, glaciers and polar bears. With Live Science, you can unlock the mysteries of Earth's northernmost region, like the new top predator along the Arctic coast, the discovery of a huge hole in the Arctic, and photos of polar bears playing house. There's captivating and informative content for you in our latest Arctic news, features and articles from Live Science's expert team of writers and editors.
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Permafrost thaw and 'shrubification' have tipped Alaska's North Slope into a wildfire regime not seen for 3,000 yearsAn analysis of peatland soil samples and satellite images has found that wildfires on Alaska's North Slope are more frequent and severe now than they were at any point over the past 3,000 years.
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Critical moment when El Niño started to erode Russia's Arctic sea ice discoveredScientists discover a tipping point that took place in 2000, where El Niño’s effect on sea ice loss in Siberia was amplified.
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Huge ice dome in Greenland vanished 7,000 years ago — melting at temperatures we're racing toward todayScientists drilled to the bottom of Greenland's 1,600-foot deep Prudhoe Dome and found it disappeared in the early Holocene, when temperatures were close to what we're predicted to reach by the end of the century.
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Arctic 'methane bomb' may not explode as permafrost thaws, new study suggestsMethanotrophs, including those that capture methane from the air, seem to outcompete methanogens in dry environments, a new study shows.
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Scientists 'reawaken' ancient microbes from permafrost — and discover they start churning out CO2 soon afterResearchers incubated permafrost samples from Alaska at different temperatures and found that microbes from the last ice age can reactivate and resume breaking down carbon.
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'It was so unexpected': 90 billion liters of meltwater punched its way through Greenland ice sheet in never-before-seen melting eventA previously-undetected flood over Greenland's ice sheet has confounded model predictions about how the region's meltwater should leak.
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New technologies are helping to regrow Arctic sea iceBut should we use them?
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Scientists record never-before-seen 'ice quakes' deep inside Greenland's frozen riversQuakes recorded for the first time inside Greenland's biggest frozen river, the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, suggest this river and others switch between moving jerkily and flowing like honey.
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'Ominous milestone for the planet': Arctic Ocean's 1st ice-free day could be just 3 years away, alarming study findsThe Arctic's ice cover could dip below a crucial threshold as soon as 2027, and will do so inevitably in the next 20 years if greenhouse gas emissions continue, scientists warn.
