Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Arctic Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on September 15, 2017, and transitioned some of our coverage to Oceans Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Arctic. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, has been sharing her stories of life in the war. With her mother and siblings, she has now left Syria, stopping off in Turkey before embarking on the next stage of her journey – the precarious crossing to Greece by boat.
Researchers around the world are exploring how GMO technology might boost food production under hot, dry conditions. They aim to reduce global water demand – and also hope this new arena of research will ease consumer anxiety about genetic engineering.
CLIMATE NEWS NETWORK: Higher temperatures and permafrost thaw could cause an increase of up to 50 percent in emissions of methane from northern lakes and ponds by the end of the century. The greenhouse gas is many times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Leadership at the Arctic Council rotates among its members every two years. In April, Canada passed the chairmanship to the United States. With the new year underway, we take a look back at what the Arctic Council has accomplished since the U.S. took over the role.
Local organizations have been working day and night over the past two months to prepare Syrians for the coming winter. Nearly a dozen people died across Syria last January due to a fatal combination of inadequate shelter and freezing weather. This year, they hope to be ready for anything.
In 2015 California’s second-largest city engaged in a prolonged series of disputes over water. San Diego continued a number of legal battles against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which it accuses of wanton spending and poor conservation choices, among other concerns.
Computer projections released earlier this week showed temperatures in the North Pole rising above freezing on Wednesday, but the effects of the usual weather system have been borne by Norway’s Svalbard archipelago - and could have profound effects on reindeer and infrastructure.
Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, has been sharing her stories of life in the war. With her mother and siblings, she has now left Syria for a new life in Istanbul. She describes the fateful journey and her mixed excitement and apprehension at leaving the country of her birth.
Naji Jerf, who was assassinated Sunday in broad daylight, would be the third citizen journalist to have been targeted by Islamic State on Turkish soil. Each murder seems to have been calculated attempt to frighten other activists away from publishing on ISIS abuses.
When barrel bombs fall on opposition-held neighborhoods across Syria, the White Helmets rush in. The selfless work of the Civil Defense volunteer force is well known, but the individuals who risk it all on a daily basis are not. Syria Deeply met with a young volunteer in Aleppo to hear his story.
One of the most difficult environments for water conservation is multi-family housing, because most units were built without water meters in each apartment or condominium. Ben Bahk’s company AQUEES installs meters and offers a conservation program that can save a good deal of money.
Much of the Canadian Arctic is still powered by old, diesel-fired power plants. In Nunavut, the reliance on diesel is total, and in the Northwest Territories it’s a drain on government funds. In both places, a post-carbon economy is for now a distant fantasy.
From the U.S and Russia to Saudi Arabia, it seems like everyone has a stake in Syria’s civil war these days. But as world powers redouble efforts to find a political solution to Syria’s nearly five-year-long civil war, conflicting interests over the fate of Assad threaten to bedevil the entire process.
Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, deciding to focus her college studies on prosthetics, which she hopes to use to help heal the injured in her country’s conflict.
The range of measures used to explain the California drought can be confusing. Here’s a simple summary of some of the most important drought numbers, from well failures to grants for water-system improvements, together with an idea of how these figures have changed as the crisis has developed.
Black carbon, also known as soot, has an important role in global warming, especially in the Arctic. When it’s in the atmosphere, it traps heat, and when it falls on snow or ice, it speeds up melting. Curbing black carbon emissions could help slow down the planet’s warming.
In a live streamed conversation, Syrian journalist Rami Jarrah spoke with The Syria Campaign to talk about daily life in Aleppo, the hardest hit city in Syria’s civil war. Jarrah said that despite the current international focus on ISIS, Russian airstrikes currently pose the greatest threat to Aleppo’s civilians.
As permafrost thaws, a portion of the carbon stored in these northernmost ecosystems may be released to the atmosphere and trigger runaway global warming. Wildfires have also become more frequent and are burning larger areas in this changing region.
As controversy continues in the United States around the resettlement of Syrian refugees, Syria Deeply asked a former U.S. ambassador to Syria to help us make sense of the U.S.’s stance toward refugees coming from the war-torn country and whether or not increased restrictions serve American interests.
Now that storms have begun moving into drought-plagued California, it’s time to think about making use of that water. You don’t need fancy rain barrels or cisterns. Just a simple flexible rain gutter extension to send the runoff from your roof to the spot in your yard that needs it.
Driven from their homes by fighting, often with children to care for and with no husband to provide protection, women bereaved by the civil war have severely limited choices in seeking security – especially when local tradition means that many Syrian men are opposed to marrying widows.
As the war in Syria continues, residents in Damascus say more and more young men are being detained at government checkpoints throughout the capital, in what some fear may be part of a campaign to replenish Bashar al-Assad’s diminished fighting force.
Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, deciding to focus her college studies on prosthetics, which she hopes to use to help heal the injured in her country’s conflict.
The latest report on the Arctic by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finds dwindling sea ice and temperatures as much as 3C (5.4F) above average are disrupting walrus and fish populations and having major impacts on the ecosystem.
A collaborative project between academics and the general public is conducting surveys within Syria and among the growing refugee population to get a sense of how Aleppians envision postwar reconstruction in the city hardest hit by the five-year civil war.
Microplastics found in fabrics and cosmetics accumulate in fish tissue, absorb pollutants and may harm human health. Studies estimate the United States dumps 8 trillion microbeads into its waters every day. The problem is particularly acute in San Francisco Bay, where water flushes out slowly.
As Saudi Arabia’s Syrian opposition talks wrapped up on Thursday, Syria Deeply asked our community of experts – including Hassan Hassan of Chatham House and Ryan Crocker, the former US Ambassador to Syria and Lebanon – how likely it was that the Riyadh group could successfully represent the Syrian opposition in negotiations with the Assad government.
Numerous efforts are under way to restore floodplains throughout the state to capture stormwater. The projects simply aim to reconnect rivers with their historic floodplains — long isolated by levees and land development — but require a different way of thinking about farming and land management.
Despite fleeing far from airstrikes and gunfire, many Syrian refugee children find they can’t get away from the effects of the war. A group of therapists and volunteers in Turkey are working to help traumatized youngsters whose “ability to trust, to daydream and to be creative has been shut down”.
CLIMATE NEWS NETWORK: With the U.N. climate conference still trying to agree on an effective way to tackle global warming, a scientific group warns that policy is ignoring the reality of the melting cryosphere, where change is happening faster and more dramatically than anywhere else on earth.
Green rooftops are popping up across Damascus in neighborhoods under government siege. With no sign of the blockade letting up and no available agricultural land, residents in the rebel-held areas of the capital are making use of open roofs, sunlight and seeds to feed their families.
Arctic indigenous peoples’ groups are in Paris to attend the climate change summit and to urge negotiators to adopt an agreement that recognizes and protects their rights, as well as their culture and traditions – and to provide funding to support adaptation.
Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, deciding to focus her college studies on prosthetics, which she hopes to use to help heal the injured in her country’s conflict.
According to a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front, this week’s Saudi-held opposition conference is a “positive step” toward unifying the fractured elements of Syria’s opposition so that they can work together to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.
After more than a century of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is en route to record-high temperatures. But negotiators at this week’s climate talks in Paris will try to put the planet on a different path. Here’s what you need to know about COP21 – and why it matters to the Arctic.
In a video recently published by The Syria Campaign, a French journalist held prisoner by ISIS for 10 months said that ongoing international efforts to destroy the Islamic State by bombing the militants into oblivion will only work to push more people into the extremist group’s hands.
A state-building manual used by Islamic State administrators confirms the complexity and breadth of the group’s efforts to create a functioning state, albeit one ruled by terror. In life under Islamic State, however, many civilian services seem to be suffering.
The rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is creating economic, social and environmental challenges that call for global discussion and new policies. But sound information on the Arctic is scattered and incomplete. It’s time to bring more depth and understanding to these issues.
FRESNO BEE: In California’s arid San Joaquin Valley, “We are doing everything we can think of to keep going,” says one farmer. That includes looking for ways to recharge groundwater aquifers after decades of overexploitation. Young farmers say struggles imposed by the drought are teaching them valuable lessons.
SACRAMENTO BEE: California’s new groundwater legislation is likely to limit water extraction significantly, possibly forcing some areas of farmland in the state out of production; meanwhile, conversion to ‘solar farms’ could be the wave of the future.
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