On July 28, 2020, near Longyearbyen, Norway, a passenger on a plane photographed the melting glaciers during a summer heatwave on Svalbard, showing more colors than the bitterly cold and frozen white. It has raised concerns that Greenland's glaciers could lose more ice than previously thought, rising sea level much faster, and Polar Bears and walruses may not be able to survive there in 2100.
The human-caused global warming has changed the Arctic, in a matter of decades, a blink of an eye in the Earth's history, into a place that scientists say is more and more bizarre.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued an Arctic Report Card. The annual comprehensive physical check-up on the health of this vast and vital biome is stated.
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The report card released last Tuesday states that due to global warming, the Arctic today is a lot hotter, greener, and less icy than it was even just 15 years ago, as compared to its first published Arctic Report Card. Its near-record high surface temperatures and near-record low sea ice observed yet again draw an image of a heating region rapidly, at a pace far outperforming scientists' anticipations.
NOAA's Pacific Marine oceanographer James Overland said at an Environmental Laboratory, "We thought the changes would take a lot longer, and the models were saying they would." Overland, who has been a part of all 15 Arctic Report Cards and co-authored the portion on surface air temperatures in this edition, further said, "But the rate of change we've seen in the last 20 years -- and especially the last five years -- is beyond what we thought would happen." The changes are believed brought about by global warming.
The prevalent changes due to global warming, detected in the Arctic this year, and what they mean for the rest of the planet. Extreme heat and dwindling ice. In the Arctic, sea ice has been deteriorating intensely as the effect of global warming penetrates it quickly.
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The Arctic is a global climate gauge, scientists say. As the globe heats up due to global warming or human emissions of greenhouse gases, the result of such warming are felt and indicate the changes to arise in lower latitude climates. Many of the changes are noticed across the Arctic, from lessening sea ice and melting on Greenland's ice sheet to permafrost defrost and even moves in species distributions, are being driven by increased air temperatures global warming, Overland said.
Overland also said, "Further south in the US's lower 48, we can handle a change of a couple of degrees in air temperature." He further added, "But the potential changes in the Arctic that are triple what we see at the mid-latitudes are going to completely change what the Arctic looks like, and that will feedback to the rest of the planet."
The past year was another oddly hot one in most of the region, the report found. In the last century for the Arctic, the second-hottest year, with surface temperatures 1.9 degrees Celsius (3.42 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than 1981 to 2010 middling, was between October 2019 and September 2020. Only 2016 have foreseen higher temperatures than this past year.
