Once-in-a-century salmon run hits Canada’s West Coast

Every year Vancouver resident Stephen Ottridge takes hamburgers or steak to his street's annual summer block party. This year, against the backdrop of what looks to be the biggest sockeye salmon run in almost a century in the nearby Fraser River, he arrived with a salmon large enough to fill the whole barbecue. "There is a cornucopia of salmon this year, so we decided to treat the block to some," Ottridge said from the city on Canada's Pacific Coast, where marine experts are both puzzled and delighted by the unexpected glut of the bright-red, succulent fish.

Arctic Could be Ice-Free in future Summers

Are warming conditions in the Arctic unprecedented in Earth’s history? It turns out that they are not. The Earth’s climate has gone through warming and cooling times in the past as can be seen in the fossil record that shows tropical species in regions now too cool to support them. These past variations were obviously not caused by the effects of man's activities. This does not mean that the current warming trend is not caused, or affected by anthropogenic air pollution. There is now increased evidence that the Arctic could face seasonally ice-free conditions and much warmer temperatures in the future.