The Arctic

Arctic researchers with the midnight sun.
Scientists work on the ice in the Arctic under a midnight sun. (Image credit: Jeremy Potter NOAA/OAR/OER)

The Arctic region of the Earth is defined roughly as the area above 66 degrees north latitude and is largely a vast ocean covered by sea-ice, though that ice is being affected by global warming. The Arctic also includes much of Greenland, which is covered by a massive ice sheet, as well as the frozen tundra of Europe, Asia and North America. It has distinctive plants and animals found only there, such as the polar bear and the Arctic fox. Read below for the latest news and research from and on the Arctic, its ice and the life it supports.

Latest about Arctic

Arctic ice photographed in 2005.

Dramatic Arctic Ice Melt Blows Away Previous Record

By Wynne Parry last updated

A summer of record melt for the icy cap on top of the world ends with a new record.

Overhead photo of Qeqertaq Avannarleq, a Ghost Island which turned out to be a dirty iceberg.

Arctic 'ghost island' that vanished may have actually been a dirty iceberg

By Kevin Hamilton published

The world’s 'northernmost island' isn’t the first to be erased from the map.

The Milne Fiord epishelf lake in Neige Bay, Canada.

Giant viruses are infecting algae in a floating lake in the Arctic

By Patrick Pester published

Giant viruses infect tiny algae in a rare epishelf lake in the Arctic Ocean that's one of the last of its kind.

Image from bathymetry surveys

Sinkholes as big as a skyscraper and as wide as a city street open up in the Arctic seafloor

By Jeanna Bryner published

Giant "sinkholes" — one of which could devour an entire city block holding six-story buildings — are appearing along the Arctic seafloor.

The excavations of the mammoth skeleton on Kotelny Island this summer show it was deliberately butchered by Stone Age humans around 26,000 years ago.

Russian expedition finds evidence of northernmost Stone Age hunters above the Arctic Circle

By Tom Metcalfe published

Ancient cut marks on mammoth bones unearthed on a remote island in the frozen extremes of Siberia are the northernmost evidence of Paleolithic humans ever found, according to archaeologists.

Rotifer recovering from week-long cryptobiosis in the lab.

24,000-year-old 'zombies' revived and cloned from Arctic permafrost

By Mindy Weisberger published

Arctic ice dating to 24,000 years ago held frozen microscopic animals called rotifers. Scientists just brought them back to life.

An example of a trail left by sponges as they crawl across the seafloor.

Arctic sponges crawl around the seafloor and leave bizarre brown trails to prove it

By Harry Baker published

For the first time, researchers have captured images of bizarre brown trails on an Arctic ridge that appear to have been left by sponges crawling across the seafloor.

A polar bear treks by Kaktovik in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Trump administration to approve Arctic wildlife refuge for oil and gas drilling

By Laura Geggel published

The section of the refuge poised to be leased is a key habitat for Arctic wildlife.

Aerial view of researchers working on Arctic sea ice.

The Arctic Circle: Polar portal to the Arctic

By Tiffany Means published

Located about 66.5 degrees north of the Equator lies the Arctic Circle — a line of latitude that outlines the border of Earth's northernmost region known as the Arctic.

Trees struggle to remain upright in a lake formed by abrupt permafrost thaw.

Arctic sinkholes open in a flash after permafrost melt

By Mindy Weisberger published

Arctic permafrost is thawing, and some zones are melting so quickly that the new landscape becomes a soggy marsh riddled with sinkholes.

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