Arctic Warming Is Turning Alaska’s Rivers Red With Toxic Runoff. (New York Times)
A tributary of the Kugaaruk River in northern Alaska turning orange from elevated heavy metal concentrations. Credit...Josh Koch/U.S. Geological Survey
Excerpt:
Record-setting temperatures and rainfall in the Arctic over the past year sped up the melting of permafrost and washed toxic minerals into more than 200 rivers across northern Alaska, threatening vital salmon runs, according to a report card issued by federal scientists.
The report, compiled by dozens of academic and government scientists and coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, documented rapid environmental changes from Norway’s Svalbard Island to the Greenland ice sheet and the tundra of northern Canada and Alaska.
Between October 2024 and September 2025, the period from when the ground begins to freeze until the end of summer, surface air temperatures were the warmest on record dating back 125 years, the report found.
“The Arctic region has a powerful influence on Earth’s ecosystem as a whole,” said Steve Thur, NOAA’s assistant administrator for research and acting chief scientist.
This year’s 153-page Arctic report card is coming out despite a shift at the agency, including a focus on commercial aspects of the ocean, such as deep-sea mining. In April, the Trump administration proposed eliminating NOAA’s research arm, a move that would hobble early warning systems for natural disasters, science education and the study of the Arctic. The Trump administration fired 1,000 NOAA employees earlier this year, but has since tried to rehire 450 of them, mostly in its National Weather Service branch.
Despite the proposed budget cuts, the report card was compiled by NOAA this year and was written by scientists from academic institutions in the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as researchers from NASA and several other federal science agencies. NOAA has been monitoring changes in the Arctic region for 20 years. Over this year’s study period, there was a record amount of precipitation, both snow and rain, averaged across the region.
Permafrost, a mixture of soil, rocks and organic matter that remains frozen year-round, covers much of the Arctic’s land surface. That permafrost has been melting since the early 2000s, and researchers have now discovered toxic chemicals leaching into rivers in northern Alaska as the permafrost melts.
