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Eugene

(61,593 posts)
Tue Dec 11, 2018, 12:02 PM Dec 2018

The Arctic's Warmest 5 Years on Record: 2014-Present

Source: New York Times

The Arctic’s Warmest 5 Years on Record: 2014-Present

By John Schwartz
Dec. 11, 2018

The Arctic has been warmer over the last five years than at any time since records began in 1900, and the region is warming at twice the rate as the rest of the planet, scientists said Tuesday.

The rising air temperatures are having profound effects on sea ice, and on life on land and in the ocean, the scientists said. The changes can be felt far beyond the region, especially since the changing Arctic climate may be influencing extreme weather events around the world.

Those assessments were part of the latest “Arctic Report Card,” issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, and presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington.

“We’re seeing this continued increase of warmth pervading across the entire Arctic system,” said Emily Osborne, lead editor of the report and manager of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program. “That’s having implications for both ocean and terrestrial systems.”

The new edition of the report, which is published annually, does not present a radical break with past installments, but it shows that troublesome trends wrought by climate change are intensifying. Air temperatures in the Arctic in 2018 will be the second-warmest ever recorded, the report said, behind only 2016.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/climate/arctic-warming.html

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