The Arctic is on fire, which is the conclusion of many studies – it is warming much faster than the global average compared to the rhythm of rising global temperatures. For example, the ANALYSISA data shows that global temperatures have been rising since 1900, but since 2000, Arctic temperatures have risen at least twice as much as the global average, rising about 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) overall, which is known as the "Arctic amplification effect."
For example, between October 2020 and September 2021 , which is just past ( the Climate Monitoring Arctic year is different from the Gregorian calendar year to avoid the colder months that divide the Arctic). During this period, near-surface temperatures in arctic land areas were the seventh highest since recorded since 1900. The average temperature is 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 1981-2010 average. According to the analysis, although temperatures were slightly below average in parts of Eurasia, North America and the North Atlantic, warmer temperatures dominated the year in the Arctic, with particularly high temperatures around the central Arctic, the Lapteve Sea and Greenland flattening.
What happens when the Arctic warms? The most intuitive change is the shrinking area of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean , according to the National Ice and Snow Data Center, the amount of ice that survived the summer melt season fell by 13% per decade compared to the average of 1981-2010. This change can also be seen on averages: the summer minimum in 1979-1992 averaged 6.85 million square kilometers, 6.13 million square kilometers in 1993-2006 and 4.44 million square kilometers in 2007-2020. On September 16, 2021, Arctic sea ice reached its annual summer minimum. The Arctic Ocean's sea ice concentration of at least 15 percent is 4.72 million square kilometers, the 12th smallest summer minimum on record and 1.5 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average.
In recent years, there have even been some particular anomalies near the Arctic: in 2021, the World Meteorological Organization officially recognized the 38.0 degrees Celsius temperature data measured in Verkhoyansk(Верхоянск) measured at 67.55 degrees north latitude on June 20, 2020, which is the highest temperature since observations were recorded in the Arctic Circle. On February 5 and 7, 1892, Verkhoyonsk measured a temperature of -67.8 degrees Celsius (not widely recognized), but it is also a rare place in the world where the difference between high and low temperatures exceeds 100 degrees Celsius.
On August 14, 2021, Greenland, the first rainfall (previously all snowfall) recorded at the summit station at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, was the largest rainfall on the Greenland ice sheet since meteorological records were recorded in the region in 1950. After the rainfall, the ice sheet melts in a large area. Monitoring data pointed out that there was an anomaly in which glaciers melted in 872,000 square kilometers in one day, and the amount of ice melted in one day reached 7 times the average daily ice melting volume in the same period of each year.
So how does the Arctic amplification effect come about? According to the U.S. Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration, this is caused by a variety of complex mechanisms, such as the loss of ice and snow in the Arctic, and the exposed sea surface or land surface is darker than ice and snow, reducing the ability of the Arctic to reflect sunlight, and these complex feedback mechanisms have enhanced warming in high latitudes, making the Arctic one of the fastest warming places in the world.
Of course, in addition to some explicit changes, the warming of the Arctic is also changing the ecology of the Arctic. According to NASA satellite data, the Arctic has been "turning green" over the past two decades. As shown in the figure below, an increase (green) or decrease in tundra productivity in the Arctic is shown. Overall, trends are particularly strong east of Canada's Hudson Bay and the Russian Far East, but productivity appears to be declining in some regions, such as the East Siberian Sea coast in eastern Russia. A large part of the greening trend is driven by the "shrubbing" of tundra. In many areas, the tundra shrubs are getting larger and denser, and they are also expanding further on the newly thawed permafrost. Whether this situation is good or bad is still widely debated, and some researchers believe that this may increase the risk of disasters such as tundra fires in the Arctic Circle.
In addition, many studies believe that warming in the Arctic also represents a significant increase in the frequency of more extreme weather events. The westerly jet stream, driven by the difference between the cold and warm between the polar regions and the low and middle latitudes, is an important weather system in the northern hemisphere, but due to the Arctic amplification effect, this difference has been narrowed, and the "graben" and some loosening of the westerly wind rapids have led to more likely north-south heat exchange between the polar and external regions to occur, and will also promote more intense and extreme warming and cold wave events.
Overall, the Arctic is indeed seriously "on fire," a once icy place that is now being driven by increased heat and snow loss to a warmer, more volatile future. According to Dr. Rick Spinrad of the U.S. Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration, the current data continue to show that the Arctic is changing to a very different state than it was decades ago, and these trends are shocking and undeniable, and the global human race faces a decisive moment when action must be taken to deal with the climate crisis, otherwise the consequences will be extremely serious.