CRYOPOLITICS | Original news, photos & maps from the Arctic

Navalny & Nord Stream 2: It all goes back to the Arctic

norway hurtigruten arctic shipping — In just 20 years, ships could cross an open Arctic Ocean

Fox Glacier, New Zealand — New Zealand’s Southern Alps offer a lush mirror image of the Arctic

When the Black Death stalked midnight’s lands

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Russia

Navalny & Nord Stream 2: It all goes back to the Arctic

The poisoning of Putin's fiercest critic, Alexei Navalny, could disrupt plans for Nord Stream 2, which would bring gas from…

USA/Alaska

What the Arctic reveals about coronavirus

The biological residues of the 1918 Spanish Flu dug up from the Arctic's frozen recesses may inform how we react…

Climate Change

Welcome to the geoengineered Arctic

At Arctic Circle 2019, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, it seemed, had not gotten the memo: Oil is out,…

Global Arctic

The globalization of the cloudberry

While berry-picking forms a seasonal joy for Arctic residents, the rest of the demands the fruits of their labor -…

Shipping

In just 20 years, ships could cross an open Arctic Ocean

Sailing via the North Pole was impossible until the 1950s. Now, it is all but inevitable. Even if greenhouse gas…

Travel & Photo

New Zealand’s Southern Alps offer a lush mirror image of the Arctic

By the end of this century, tourism on the moon may be possible, but glacier tourism in New Zealand may…

Going underground in Kiruna

"In order for us to be able to continue mining iron ore, up until 2035, everything on top of the…

Icelandic artist lights up London

Olafur Eliasson's show at London's Tate Modern passes Iceland's landscape through a glass prism, refracting it into a world of…

Cycling along the whale-road

On the windswept Outer Hebrides, one of the remotest parts of the United Kingdom, silvery mists swirl over white sand…

Asia & the Arctic

China reveals Arctic geopolitics to be above Pompeo’s pay grade

Pompeo’s swashbuckling fantasies aside, geopolitical competition in the contemporary Arctic is not about who controls swaths of continents or oceans.…

South Korea, an unlikely polar pioneer, hosts Arctic conference

Over the weekend, as the temperature in Seoul plunged to -12°C, Koreans bundled up in the long puffy black parkas…

Northern lights to neon lights: Kirkenes to transform into polar Chinatown

Featured image: In February 2019, street signs in Kirkenes will temporarily go from bilingual to trilingual. Photo: Cryopolitics rendition. Sitting on…

Along the Polar Silk Road, China breaks the ice

I recently wrote an op-ed for China-US Focus, which describes itself as one of the leading commentary journals of Sino-American relations. The…

Maps & Satellite Imagery

Cross-polar flights leave trails of pollution in their wake, hurting the Arctic.

Russia’s extension of US overflight rights hurts the Arctic

Every week, hundreds of flights on U.S. airlines pass through Russian airspace. Only a handful of these flights actually start…

New European satellite provides crystal-clear view of Arctic

Featured image: Ice flowing out to sea near Ilulissat, Greenland In June of last year, a satellite called Sentinel-2 rocketed into space.…

Seen from space: Canadian highway to Arctic Ocean nears completion

Featured image: The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway seen from space with NASA’s Landsat-8 satellite. A few days ago, The Washington Post ran a story…

At night, satellites cast eyes on the Arctic frontier

(A version of this post originally appeared as part of the December 8 launch of Arctic Deeply, a now sadly defunct…