ARCTIC IS WARMING ALMOST FOUR TIMES FASTER THAN GLOBAL AVERAGE

Fri 12 August 2022:

Climate change has harmed the Arctic far more severely than previously thought, according to Finnish researchers.

According to a new study from the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, the Arctic region has warmed about four times faster than the global average during the last 43 years.

Some regions of the Arctic Ocean have warmed seven times faster than the rest of the earth. According to researcher Mika Rantanen, climate models have so far overestimated the so-called polar amplification impact.

Past studies had found that the Arctic was heating up twice as fast as other regions, while an Arctic Council working group based in Tromsø, Norway, had reported in May 2021 that the increase in average Arctic surface temperature between 1971 and 2019 was 3.1 degrees Celsius, about three times higher than the global average.

The Finnish researchers attribute their higher estimate to the strong and persistent Arctic warming, but also to their definition of the Arctic – the entire area located within the Arctic Circle – as well as the fact that they considered calculations starting from 1979 – the year when more detailed and thus more reliable satellite images became available.

According to the scientists, the extent of polar amplification is due to both climate change caused by human activities and natural long-term climate fluctuations. They believe that both variables contributed to a rise in amplification over the past 43 years.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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