Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive melting of ice, snow

The Arctic shattered heat records in the past year as unusually warm air triggered massive melting of ice and snow and a late fall freeze, US government scientists said Tuesday, reports AFP from Miami.
The grim assessment came in the Arctic Report Card 2016, a peer-reviewed document by 61 scientists around the globe issued by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The NOAA report covers from October 2015 to September 2016, a period it said the Arctic’s average annual air temperature over land was the highest on record.
“The report card this year clearly shows a stronger and more pronounced signal of persistent warming than any previous year in our observational record” going back to 1900, NOAA Arctic Research Program director Jeremy Mathis told the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, where the report was released.
“Those warming effects in the Arctic have had a cascading effect through the environment.”
The environment has steadily declined since scientists started doing the annual report card, now in its 11th year, co-author Donald Perovich said.
“When it started, you kind of had to listen closely because the Arctic was whispering change,” said Perovich, who works at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering in New Hampshire.
“Now it is not whispering anymore. It is speaking change. It is shouting change.”
The Arctic region is continuing to warm up more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, which is also expected to mark its hottest year in modern times.
Climate scientists say the reasons for the rising heat include the burning of fossil fuels that emit heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, southerly winds that pushed hot air from the mid-latitudes northward, as well as the El Nino ocean warming trend, which ended mid-year.
The Arctic’s annual air temperature over land was 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit (3.5 degrees Celsius) higher than in 1900, the report said. The sea surface temperature in the peak summer month of August 2016 reached nine degrees Fahrenheit (five degrees Celsius) above the average for 1982-2010 in the Barents and Chukchi seas and off the east and west coasts of Greenland.
“Warm air and ocean temperatures in the fall led to a record-breaking delay in fall freeze-up,” Perovich said, noting that the Arctic sea ice minimum from mid-October to late November was the lowest since the satellite record began in 1979.
It was also 28 percent less than the average for 1981-2010 in October.

Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive melting of ice, snow

The Arctic shattered heat records in the past year as unusually warm air triggered massive melting of ice and snow and a late fall freeze, US government scientists said Tuesday, reports AFP from Miami. The grim assessment came in the Arctic Report Card 2016, a peer-reviewed document by 61 scientists around the globe issued by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA report covers from October 2015 to September 2016, a period it said the Arctics average annual air temperature over land was the highest on record. The report card this year clearly shows a stronger and more pronounced signal of persistent warming than any previous year in our observational record going back to 1900, NOAA Arctic Research Program director Jeremy Mathis told the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, where the report was released. Those warming effects in the Arctic have had a cascading effect through the environment. The environment has steadily declined since scientists started doing the annual report card, now in its 11th year, co-author Donald Perovich said. When it started, you kind of had to listen closely because the Arctic was whispering change, said Perovich, who worksat Dartmouth Colleges Thayer School of Engineering in New Hampshire. Now it is not whispering anymore. It is speaking change. It is shouting change. The Arctic region is continuing to warm up more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, which is also expected to mark its hottest year in modern times. Climate scientists say the reasons for the rising heat include the burning of fossil fuels that emit heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, southerly winds that pushed hot air from the mid-latitudes northward, as well as the El Nino ocean warming trend, which ended mid-year. The Arctics annual air temperature over land was 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit (3.5 degrees Celsius) higher than in 1900, the report said. The sea surface temperature in the peak summer month of August 2016 reached nine degrees Fahrenheit (five degrees Celsius) above the average for 1982-2010 in the Barents and Chukchi seas and off the east and west coasts of Greenland. Warm air and ocean temperatures in the fall led to a record-breaking delay in fall freeze-up, Perovich said, noting that the Arctic sea ice minimum from mid-October to late November was the lowest since the satellite record began in 1979. It was also 28 percent less than the average for 1981-2010 in October.