Global warming affects Arctic first

Global warming is hitting the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, the chairman of an eight-nation study said this week.

“There is dramatic climate change happening in the Arctic right now… about two to three times the pace of the whole globe,” said Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, in an 1,800 page report to be handed to the Arctic Council ministers meeting in Iceland in November.

“If you want to know what the rest of the planet is going to see in the next generation, watch out for the Arctic in the next five to ten years,” he told the Reuters news service.

Some parts of Alaska have heated up 10 times faster than the global average, said Corell, who is a senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society.

He said future temperature rises in the Arctic were likely to be twice the 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius increase previously forecast.

He said stopping climate change needs an “aggressive response,” such as wider support of the international Kyoto Accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he favoured ratifying Kyoto, which has already been backed by Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.

That would leave the United States as the only member of the eight-nation Arctic Council not to ratify the Kyoto Accord.