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The Daily Reality of Living in the Arctic With Climate Change

Image by Threshold Producer Nick Mott.

Image by Threshold Producer Nick Mott. 

The U.N.’s most recent special report on climate science was eye-opening for many. But for the four million or so people who live in the Arctic, the potentially catastrophic impacts of rapid global warming are a daily reality more than a shocking headline.

The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe. Weather and seasons that have provided the rhythm of life for generations are shifting.

Sea ice is melting and exposing new expanses of ocean. Previously frozen ground is thawing and becoming unstable. And the changes in the Arctic are wreaking havoc on the climate system in ways that affect ALL of us.

This is the topic of this—the second—season of the podcast Threshold. Executive producer Amy Martin spent eighteen months traveling around the Arctic reporting the stories of the people who live there and the scientists trying to understand Arctic change.