News
Jan 10, 2012
Report: Arctic much worse since 2006
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, December 1, 2011 Last updated:
Thursday December 1, 2011, 3:42 PM
WASHINGTON— Federal officials say the
Arctic region has changed dramatically in the
past five years — for the worse.
It’s melting at a near record pace, and it’s
darkening and absorbing too much of the
sun’s heat.
A new report card from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration rates the
polar region with blazing red stop lights on
three of five categories and yellow cautions
for the other two. Overall, these are not good
grades, but it doesn’t mean the Arctic is
doomed and it still will freeze in the winter,
said report co-editor Jackie Richter-Menge.
The Arctic acts as Earth’s refrigerator,
cooling the planet. What’s happening,
scientists said, is like someone pushing the
fridge’s thermostat much too high.
The dramatic changes are from both man-
made global warming and recent localized
weather shifts, which were on top of the
longer term warming trend, scientists said.
The report, written by 121 scientists from
around the world, said statistics point to a
shift in the Arctic health in 2006. That was
right before 2007, when a mix of weather
conditions and changing climate led to a
record loss of sea ice, from which the region
has never recovered. This summer’s sea ice
melt was the second worst on record, a tad
behind 2007.
“We’ve got a new normal,” said co-author
Don Perovich, a geophysicist at the Army
Corps of Engineers Cold Research and
Engineering Lab. “Whether it’s a tipping point
and we’ll never recover, who’s to say?”
The report highlighted statistics to show an
Arctic undergoing change:
—A NASA satellite found that 430 billion
metric tons of ice melted in Greenland from
2010 to 2011, and the melting is accelerating.
Since 2000, Greenland’s 39 widest glaciers
shrunk by nearly 530 square miles, about the
equivalent of 22 Manhattans.
—The past five years have had the five lowest
summer sea ice levels on record. For two
straight years, all three major passages
through the Arctic have been open in the
summer, which is unusual.
—Seven of 19 polar bear sub-populations
are shrinking.
—This year’s temperature is roughly 2.5
degrees Fahrenheit higher than what had
been normal since 1980.
What’s even more troubling to scientists is
that there’s been a record darkening of the
normally white Arctic land and sea. White
snow and ice reflects solar energy, but a
melting darker Arctic in the summer absorbs
that heat.
Marco Tedesco of the City College of New
York, a co-author, said the darkening is like
a speeding train going downhill, adding to the
acceleration of warming.
Richter-Menge said the darkening of the
Arctic from melting ice and snow “causes
more heating, which causes more melting,
and on the cycle goes.”
But there are some winners in the warming.
The phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean, at the
base of the marine food chain, has increased
20 percent compared with the past decade,
and some plants are doing better, scientists
said.