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    My 500-Mile Journey Across Alaska’s Thawing Arctic

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    Flames were leaping out of the forest beneath the float plane taking us deep into the remote interior of northern Alaska. Our destination was the glacial Walker Lake, which stretches 14 miles through Gates of the Arctic National Park.Nearly 100 miles from the nearest dirt road, Walker Lake is within an expanse of uninhabited tundra, scraggly boreal forests and the seemingly endless peaks of the Brooks Range in a wilderness bigger than Belgium. Once we arrived, we saw wide bear trails bulldozed through alder thickets and plentiful signs of moose and wolves.We had come here to begin a 500-mile journey that would take us in pack rafts down the Noatak River, believed to be the longest undeveloped river system left in the United States, and on foot, slogging the beaches of the Chukchi Sea coastline. Our goal was to get a close-up look at how warming temperatures are affecting this rugged but fragile Arctic landscape. Worldwide, roughly twice the amount of the heat-trapping carbon now in the atmosphere has been locked away in the planet’s higher latitudes in frozen ground known as permafrost. Now that ground is thawing and releasing its greenhouse gases.The fire we flew over was our first visible sign of the changes underway.While wildfires are part of the landscape’s natural regenerative cycle, they have until recently been infrequent above the Arctic Circle. But now the rising heat of the lengthening summers has dried out the tundra and the invasive shrubs that have recently moved north with the warmth. This is a tinderbox for lightning strikes. The fires expose and defrost the frozen soil, allowing greenhouse gases to escape into the atmosphere.I have slept more than 1,000 nights on frozen terrain while exploring the Far North. My first Arctic venture was in 1983, with a fellow National Park Service ranger in a tandem kayak on the Noatak River in Gates of the Arctic. We awoke one morning, startled by the sounds of a big animal running through low willows. It jumped into the river straight toward our tent — a caribou chased by a wolf. We were relieved it wasn’t a bear.I couldn’t help but feel unsettled, even reduced, by the immense sky and landscape. While the scale of it all seemed too much to process, the Arctic had captured my soul and I set out on numerous other trips across different places in the North.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Another North Carolina House Collapses Amid Hurricane Ernesto’s Waves

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      In Rodanthe, N.C., seven homes have been lost to the ocean in the last four years, as rising sea levels erode shorelines and put more buildings at risk. In the community of Rodanthe on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, residents witnessed on Friday an event that was not new and is unfortunately becoming more frequent: A house on the picturesque shoreline collapsed into the ocean.Weather experts said that crashing waves produced by Hurricane Ernesto hundreds of miles away, combined with especially high tides, appeared to be the cause, though local officials also said that the house was at risk of collapsing before the storm. For those on the Outer Banks, the destruction was one more stark reminder of the larger force at play — climate change, which is making storms more intense and sea levels higher, accelerating the erosion of beach fronts.Rodanthe, home to about 200 people, has lost seven homes to the ocean in the past four years. The house that was destroyed on Friday was unoccupied at the time of the collapse. There have been no reports of injuries from any of the seven collapses, according to the National Park Service. Officials warned that many more homes are at risk for damage or collapse in the coming days as Hurricane Ernesto pummels the East Coast from afar, even as it follows a path that is not expected to hit the mainland United States. Some other homes near Rodanthe have already appeared to sustain damage. Forecasters predict that the storm could bring dangerous rip currents and a high surf along the East Coast through the weekend. The risks could persist in the Outer Banks through early next week, they said. In North Carolina, climate change has caused the sea level to rise by about half a foot since 2000, and the level could rise by about another foot by 2050, said William Sweet, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bones Found on Prince Edward Island Beach Are Likely From a Shipwreck, but Which One?

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      Human remains found last month in an area of Prince Edward Island that was perilous for ships were most likely buried after a shipwreck in the 1800s, experts say.Human bones were found protruding from the side of an eroding cliff on Prince Edward Island in Canada late last month.But it wasn’t a crime scene. The remains, discovered by a resident who was out for a walk along the province’s western coast, were most likely from a shipwreck that occurred roughly 150 years ago.It is also possible that the bones had been previously found and reburied, said Scott Ferris, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Prince Edward Island. Hurricane Fiona, he added, caused erosion and damage to the island in 2022, raising the possibility that more such remains could be found.The authorities came to the conclusion that the bones were most likely from a shipwreck largely by speaking with locals familiar with the island’s history and by reviewing historical accounts, said Cpl. Gavin Moore, another spokesman for the R.C.M.P. in Prince Edward Island.While an investigation is ongoing, Corporal Moore said it was unlikely that the bones were connected to any recent events.But if local experts agree that a shipwreck is the most likely scenario, it raises a question: Which one?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More