Iqaluit-born Student Completes Master's Thesis on Ringed Seal Health. For her master's thesis project, Enooyaq Sudlovenick decided to take a closer look at an animal she grew up hunting and eating: the ringed seal. While completing her master's of science degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Prince Edward Island, Sudlovenick, 27, travelled back to her hometown of Iqaluit several times over two years to study the seals. Nunatsiaq Online

 

The Greenland Ice Sheet Poured 197 Billion Tons of Water Into the North Atlantic in July Alone. When one thinks of Greenland, images of an icebound, harsh and forbidding landscape probably come to mind, not a landscape of ice pocked with melt ponds and streams transformed into raging rivers. And almost certainly not one that features wildfires. Yet the latter description is exactly what Greenland looks like today, according to imagery shared on social media, scientists on the ground and data from satellites. The Washington Post

 

A Nearly 100-Year-Old Physics Model Replicates Modern Arctic Ice Melt. It might seem bizarre to modify a physics model originally used to study the behavior of ferromagnets to explore patterns of melt ponds on Arctic sea ice. However, this approach makes intuitive sense to Kenneth Golden, a mathematician at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Golden said that he and his collaborators have been "really surprised with the response" to their New Journal of Physics study published on 21 June. EOS

 

Walruses Appear Early on Alaska Shore as Sea Ice Recedes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says thousands of Pacific walruses have come to shore on the northwest coast of Alaska in their earliest appearance since sea ice has substantially receded. Agency spokeswoman Andrea Medeiros says several thousand walruses on Tuesday spotted on the barrier island near Point Lay. KTVA

Canada Creates Vast Conservation Zone in the Arctic. Justin Trudeau was about five years old when he first flew over Canada's Arctic in a very small plane with his father, stunned as he witnessed 100 narwhals breaking through the sea ice. Things have changed drastically since then. On Thursday, Trudeau announced the creation of one of the world's largest conservation areas and Canada's largest marine protected area: the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area and the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area, both in the northeastern region of Nunavut. The National Observer

 

Arctic Wildfires Threaten Sea Ice. Amid an unusually warm and dry stretch in the Arctic this summer, wildfires have raged across Alaska, Greenland and Siberia, posing a threat to sea ice. Climate scientists aren't concerned about the presence of wildfires, but rather with their length and intensity. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, a European forecasting organization, noted more than 100 "intense and long-lived wildfires" above the Arctic Circle since June. The Indiana Environmental Reporter