The Arctic had the hottest summer on record this year, leading to unprecedented wildfires and melting glaciers while threatening the rest of the globe with concerns like rising sea levels, according to a US research released on Tuesday. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 2023 Arctic Report Card, summer surface air temperatures in the Arctic were the highest since at least 1900, as the Arctic continues to rise twice as fast as the rest of the world due to human-caused climate change.

According to the yearly study, catastrophic weather and climate events with global consequences are becoming increasingly common.

Warming in regions of northern canada and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago coupled with below-average precipitation, resulted in an intense wildfire season in those areas.

Greenland's ice sheet lost another 350 trillion pounds (158.7 billion metric tonnes) in mass, continuing a trend that began in 1998.

"Arctic warming has far-reaching long-term consequences beyond the region," according to the paper, since melting ice contributes to rising seas, endangering houses, transportation, and businesses in coastal communities.

Because of the copious snowfall this year, the loss to Greenland's ice sheet was far lower than the 22-year average, but the heat still took its toll.

Summit Station, the highest point on the ice sheet, melted for only the fifth time in the 34-year record, according to the study. The cumulative melt-day area - a measure of how much melts each day - was approaching an all-time high.

The report found that "irreversible climate harms caused by an overheating Arctic will continue to reverberate across North America and Eurasia," according to Brenda Ekwurzel, the Union of Concerned Scientists' director of climate science, who has conducted climate research in the Arctic but did not contribute to the report.
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Arctic Warming

SIBY JEYYA

13/12/2023 07:24 AM