Extreme climatic events are harming plant communities in the Arctic. The resulting colour change is bad news for the region's carbon storage.

Recently, however, scientists have observed not just shrinking lakes but lakes that have completely gone away. A paper published this year in Nature Climate Change, based on satellite imagery, found widespread lake loss across the Arctic over the past 20 years.

Climate change is worsening water scarcity in rural Alaska and a host of new strategies is needed to help address the issue says a recent study.