The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their 2018 Arctic Report Card this week, concluding it has experienced its “most unprecedented transition in history.” And they believe the warming temperatures and melting ice there may be the root of extreme weather around the globe. That means everything from changing populations of animals to extreme weather events like record-setting storms and even this year’s North Pole heatwave.
Ninety-five percent of the Arctic’s thickest ice has melted over the past three decades, according to the report, and overall, the region is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe. Emily Osborne, lead editor of the report and a researcher with NOAA’s Arctic Research Program, says the oldest ice in the Arctic is typically resistant to melting, keeping the area cold throughout the summer when everything else melts off.
“When observations started back in the 1970s, we had about 16 percent of the ice cover in the Arctic [that] was very old or more than four years old,” she says “And this year we’re seeing that … less than one percent of the Arctic ice pack is very old, multiyear ice.”
The report says that Arctic Ocean temperatures are rising and sea ice levels are falling faster than at any time in the past 1,500 years. And without that sea ice cover around to deflect sunlight, more sunlight will be absorbed into the ocean and contribute to warming temperatures. It’s even impacting the behavior of the Arctic jet stream.
“As the Arctic is warming at this really rapid rate, the jet stream is, in fact, slowing down, and as it slows, it creates these wobbles,” Osborn says. “When we have this wavy jet stream pattern, which can really persist as we saw in 2018 for months at a time, we have these really different air masses reaching different parts of the globe.”
