The rate of climate change in the Arctic is at least twice the global average, according Craig Tweedie, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences at The University of Texas at El Paso.

That’s why it’s so important for researchers to study the northernmost parts of the Earth, because what happens there affects the rest of the globe, Tweedie said. With the aid of a grant for nearly $750,000 from the National Science Foundation, Tweedie and his team have traveled to sites at the northern tips of Alaska and Canada, as well as far eastern Russia to see how ecosystems have changed in the last 60 to 70 years.