With 2019 on pace as one of the warmest years on record, a major new study from the University of California, Davis, reveals how rapidly the Arctic is warming and examines global consequences of continued polar warming.
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Greenland, July 2008. The Arctic has already reached the 2 degrees Celsius warming milestone during some months of the year [Credit: Eric Post, UC Davis] |
"Many of the changes over the past decade are so dramatic they make you wonder what the next decade of warming will bring," said lead author Eric Post, a UC Davis professor of climate change ecology. ""If we haven't already entered a new Arctic, we are certainly on the threshold."
What 2 degrees means for the poles
The comprehensive report represents the efforts of an international team of 15 authors specializing in an array of disciplines, including the life, Earth, social, and political sciences. They documented widespread effects of warming in the Arctic and Antarctic on wildlife, traditional human livelihoods, tundra vegetation, methane release, and loss of sea- and land ice. They also examined consequences for the polar regions as the Earth inches toward 2 degrees C warming, a commonly discussed milestone.
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An arctic fox in Siberia [Credit: Jeff Kerby] |
The study illustrates what 2 degrees C of global warming could mean for the high latitudes: up to 7 degrees C warming for the Arctic and 3 C warming for the Antarctic during some months of the year.
The authors say that active, near-term measures to reduce carbon emissions are crucial to slowing high latitude warming, especially in the Arctic.
Beyond the polar regions
Post emphasizes that major consequences of projected warming in the absence of carbon mitigation are expected to reach beyond the polar regions. Among these are sea level rise resulting from rapid melting of land ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as increased risk of extreme weather, deadly heat waves, and wildfire in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
"What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic," said co-author Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at Penn State. "The dramatic warming and melting of Arctic ice is impacting the jet stream in a way that gives us more persistent and damaging weather extremes."
Author: Kat Kerlin | Source: UC Davis [December 04, 2019]
* This article was originally published here
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