Arctic climate change at point of no return

Major implications for all humanity, as weather shifts rapidly into new, altered state. SHEREE BEGA reports

IT MIGHT be more than 14 000km away, home to polar bears, glaciers and icy deserts but scientists are clear: What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. That’s because the coldest place on earth, which has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world for the past half-century, influences weather systems across the planet.

A newly-released scientific assessment by the Arctic Council’s monitoring and assessment programme – undertaken by a team of more than 90 scientists – warns that the Arctic is shifting rapidly and in unanticipated ways into a new, altered state.

And this, say the scientists, has important implications for all humanity. “If current trends are allowed to continue, they’ll have increasingly profound impacts on human health and safety, industries and economies, and ecosystems around the world.”

Their “Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost” report warns that the Arctic Ocean could be largely free of sea ice in summer as early as the late 2030s.

Their bleak data comes as the National Snow and Ice Centre earlier reported that Arctic sea ice in March was the lowest it has ever been for the same month since satellites began measuring nearly 40 years ago.

The council’s report says the warming is marked by recordsetting temperatures in recent years, “leading to continued or accelerating losses in sea ice and snow, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, freshening and warming of the Arctic”, and ecological shifts.

The loss of sea “has the potential to accelerate global warming trends and to change climate patterns… This evidence suggests that future changes in the Arctic will affect weather elsewhere in the world even more than they do today.”

Noelle Garcin, the climate leader manager at the African Climate Reality Project, says while the profound changes in the Arctic may seem remote, the effects will be felt locally.

“These are all the results of global temperature rising. With the Arctic ice melting it accelerates the effects of global climate change, which are felt locally.

“The drought we have here and the ice melting are all symptoms of the same phenomenon, which is global warming. The weather events become more extreme and more regular.

“People say ‘but we’ve always had droughts’, and, yes, we have, but they will be longer and more severe. At the same time, we’ll have more extreme flooding and changing rainfall patterns in South Africa…

“For many people, it may feel hard to relate to the Arctic but we must remember the global weather system is interconnected.”

The Arctic, says Professor Nick King, a global change analyst and strategist, “controls” or affects global weather.

“There are many unknowns as to how things will play out, especially as we don’t really understand the system feedbacks and tipping points in the various ecosystems.

“It’s also very much about how humans respond that creates additional effects to natural responses.

“For starters, the Arctic ‘controls’ or at least substantially affects much of our global weather on a seasonal basis, from the overall temperatures, to the jet stream, to the ocean temperatures and the ocean conveyor currents and so on.

“A warmer Arctic seems to be pushing the jet stream further south, resulting in unseasonal cold snaps and snow storms further south than before, with huge impacts on agriculture, transport, energy systems and everything

And a warmer Arctic will exacerbate these impacts, “including potential for conflict as previously agreed maritime fishing areas collapse and expand in unpredictable ways; it also means that invasive species rapidly gain new footholds, as is happening already in the Arctic”.

The council’s researchers say that while the point of no return for the Arctic has been reached, implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement will limit the extent to which the Arctic climate changes over the remaining decades of this century.

“In contrast, higher emissions will result in continued losses.”

PICTURE: REUTERS Scientists work in the Arctic, in 2011. A team from the Arctic Council’s monitoring programme, claims the Arctic has been warming twice as fast as elsewhere.