Warmer, unpredictable Arctic affects regions elsewhere in the world

This NOAA map shows the deviation from average air temperatures measured from Jan. 5 to Jan. 7, 2014, due to the “polar vortex.” The darker blue shows areas which were much colder than normal at that time and the reddish brown shows areas which were abnormally warm. (PHOTO COURTESY NOAA)

Another year, another report confirming global warming is impacting the Arctic more than anywhere else on Earth.

This report, released Dec. 17 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — an agency within the United States department of commerce — says Arctic air temperatures continue to increase more than twice as fast as the global average.

And the consequences of this increase, and other climate-changing trends, aren’t limited to the Arctic, said “The Arctic Report Card 2014” — an annual update on the NOAA’s State of the Arctic Report launched in 2006.

“Arctic warming is setting off changes that affect people and the environment in this fragile region, and has broader effects beyond the Arctic on global security, trade, and climate,” Craig McLean, an official with NOAA, said in a Dec. 17 NOAA news release.

For example, air current patterns in early 2014, the report said, sent extreme cold air southward towards eastern North America — giving rise to the widely-reported “polar vortex” phenomenon — and into central Russia.

At the same time, warm air travelled northward into northern Europe and Alaska, where, in January, temperatures reached more than 10 degrees Celsius above the historic average, the release said.

This year’s report included an essay, penned by the Norwegian Polar Institute and Polar Bears International, that linked the declining polar bear population in some Arctic regions with the now common shorter sea-ice season.

“Polar bears depend on sea ice to travel, hunt, and mate, and in some areas, to den,” the NOAA release said.

Other highlights of this year’s report — which contained peer-reviewed articles submitted by more than 60 authors from 13 countries — included:

• a decrease in snow cover across the Arctic, below the 1981-2010 average, and a record low set in April in Eurasia;

• the sixth-lowest extent of sea ice recorded since 1979, meaning the eight lowest sea ice extent levels have now occurred in the last eight years; and,

• an increase in sea surface temperatures in all seas across the Arctic Ocean, including the Chukchi Sea, northwest of Alaska, where the most significant increase has been observed: a 0.5 degree Celsius increase per decade.

“The Arctic Report Card 2014 presents observations vital for documenting the state of the Arctic environmental system, understanding the complex interactions and feedbacks within the system, and predicting its future,” Martin Jeffries, the report’s principal editor, said in the NOAA release.

The State of the Arctic Report, first published in 2006, monitors the “often-quickly changing” environmental conditions in the Arctic, the release said.

NOAA’s mission, according to its website, is to track and predict Earth’s environmental changes, “from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun,” with an aim to conserve and manage coastal and marine resources.