Warm drastic events at the Arctic stun scientists

London, Feb. 27: Scientists in Arctic are poring over data coming in from the vast, normally frozen region, after the North Pole’s version of a heat wave swept across the area for the past week.

Not only was the region near the North Pole the warmest it has been during the month of February since at least the 1950s, but one of the northernmost land- based weather stations, known as Cape Morris Jesup, exceeded the freezing mark on an unprecedented nine separate days during the month.

On February 25, the weather station remained above freezing for about 24 hours, which is virtually unheard of during February, when there is no sunlight reaching the ground there.

The Arctic sea ice in the Bering Sea and to the north of Greenland actually declined during February, a time when sea ice usually expands toward its seasonal maximum in early to mid- March. Scientists interviewed for this story say that the Arctic warming event, technically known as a warm air intrusion, may be a common feature of the Arctic climate, as comparatively mild and moist air from the midlatitudes is transported north by storm systems. However, this event was not like the others, researchers said.

In Greenland, monitoring stations registered unprecedented warmth at the top of the world’s largest island.

“I think it’s fair to say that this event is unprecedented in our record — both in terms of the magnitude

and ( for Kap Morris Jesup at least) the duration,” said Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, in a Twitter message, using the Danish spelling for Cape Morris Jessup.

“The warm event at KMJ is not record breaking in terms of the highest ever recorded temperature in February, but that event in 2011 was very short- lived compared to what we have seen this year...,” she said.