Right now it’s colder in parts of England than the North Pole in a freakish weather event that is alarming scientists. In recent days, temperatures have soared in the Arctic, while the normally freezing weather has shifted south and is now blasting parts of Europe.
At this time of year, there is no sunlight in the Arctic and in the depths of winter, the mercury plummets and sea ice is at its largest extent. But scientists are deeply worried about the pace of change in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet and sea ice area is shrinking.
Bursts of heat have been occurring more frequently in the far north during winter and there are fears climate change could be permanently disrupting normal weather patterns in ways not fully understood.
“The question is whether this weather will happen more often. This is just one event so it’s hard to make a causal relationship,” Professor Lars Kaleschke, a professor at the University of Hamburg, told Reuters.
Arctic Ocean sea ice is at a record low for late February at 14.1 million square kilometres, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Scientists say a long-term shrinking of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, linked to global warming, exposes warmer water below that releases more heat into the atmosphere. That in turn may be disrupting the high altitude jet stream.
Some climate scientists say the polar heatwave and disruption of the polar vortex are a warning.
“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.
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Source: The Straits Times, 1 March 2018