Every year for the past 15, environmental scientists working under the aegis of a US government agency have issued a report on the state of the arctic, and Tuesday’s edition confirms an alarming trend: The North Pole is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
This year did not beat the record set in 2012, but it got so close that there is no reason to feel encouraged.
The sea ice floating the Arctic Ocean melts in summer and freezes again in winter. The problem is that each year, it is melting a bit more in the warm weather and refreezing a bit less.
Photo: Reuters
Scientists are getting reliable data, as satellites have been photographing and measuring the arctic nonstop since 1979.
There is no room for doubt about the region’s melting pattern: This year’s late summer thaw was the second worst year on record after 2012. Compared with its highest historical level, half of the sea ice is gone.
Since 2010, a new generation of satellites has been capable of measuring the thickness of the ice — and, here, the news is also grim. The ice is thinner, younger and more fragile.
Photo: AP
The report released on Tuesday, called the Arctic Report Card 2020 and published by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), provides a wealth of information that illustrates the complexity of the arctic climate system.
The climate in the rest of the world — wind and currents — affects what happens at the North Pole, while the South Pole is comparatively more isolated.
This complexity is seen in a statistic tucked away on page 13 of the report: Alaska’s North Slope experienced its coldest February in 30 years and it was also colder than usual in Svalbard, Norway.
However, Siberia set heat records, with temperatures 3°C to 5°C above normal, and the region experienced terrible wildfires in the spring.
The air temperature at the surface of the arctic over the course of the 2019-2020 period was 1.9°C higher than the average for the 1981-2010 period, making it the second-hottest year on record since 1900.
The phenomenon of “arctic amplification,” which causes this region to heat up faster than other parts of the world, is in full force.
The Arctic Ocean is also heating up: In August, the water was between 1°C and 3°C hotter at the surface than the average for the 1982-2010 period.
Here, too, events are linked and fuel each other. When ice melts and exposes the ocean, the water absorbs more heat from the sun, which in turn worsens the melting of the sea ice, although this time from underneath.
“One of the things that’s important to realize about the arctic is it’s a system. It’s a system of interconnected components,” said Dartmouth University engineering professor Donald Perovich, coauthor of the sea ice chapter in the NOAA report.
“You can change one thing, those changes cascade through the whole system,” he said.
Models forecast that there is to no longer be any sea ice in summer in the arctic starting between 2040 and 2060.
Progressive deep thawing of permafrost in this region might begin in 30 to 40 years, the researchers said.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
RSS