The rapid climate change in the Arctic has a profound impact on the environmental changes in the Arctic region and the world, and has become a major frontier issue in the Earth science community. The northeastern Arctic shelf, the broadest and flattest continental shelf in the world, is not only the main source area of seasonal sea-ice formation but also the area with the most intense changes in modern sea ice, thus is sensitive to climate change and becomes an environmentally fragile region. Here, we summarize recent studies and their main problems on the environmental response of the northeastern Arctic shelf under the background of rapid climate changes since the last deglacial period, and review new findings from the aspects of sediment "source-to-sink" process, sea-ice change, carbon cycle and rapid climate change events. It was found that the sources of sediments and organic carbon in the northeastern Arctic shelf are complicated, which have intense spatial and temporal variability, and the climatic and environmental changes are closely related to the evolution of sea ice. The future research should strive to launch a large international cooperation project, strengthen long-term continuous observation of modern processes, attach importance to the accurate interpretation of climate and environmental signals in geological records, deepen the use of the numerical simulation technology and big data, carry out research on rapid climate change in the Arctic and its driving mechanisms at different time scales, and strengthen the studies on relationship between rapid climate change in the Arctic and environmental change in the East Asia (China).