Latest Climate Report: "The Arctic Is Unraveling"

Post date: Dec 17, 2016 4:04:07 AM

The Arctic's average surface air temperature for the year ending September 2016 was, by far, the highest since 1900. New monthly record high temperature records were recorded for January, February, October and November of this year.

Spring snow cover extent in the North American Arctic was the lowest ever in the satellite records, which began in 1967.

In the nearly four decades of Greenland Ice Sheet observations, only one year had an earlier onset of spring melting than this year.

The Arctic's biodiversity is changing, radically, before our eyes, including a movement of sub-Arctic species northward and an increase in parasites.

These are just a few of the highlights from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) recently released 2016 Arctic Report Card.

The report, sponsored by NOAA and coauthored by more than 60 scientists from three continents, is extremely sobering, with the report's authors concluding that, "The Arctic is unraveling."

Published on Dec 13, 2016

Arctic Report Card: Update for 2016 - Tracking recent environmental changes, with 12 essays prepared by an international team of 61 scientists from 11 different countries and an independent peer-review organized by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the Arctic Council. See http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card

Now in its 11^th year, the Arctic Report Card, released today at the annual American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco, is a peer-reviewed report that brings together the work of 61 scientists from 11 nations who report on air, ocean, land and ecosystem changes. It is a key tool used around the world to track changes in the Arctic and how those changes may affect communities, businesses and people. Below are a collection of maps and other images highlighting some of this year's key findings.

(map) Temperatures across the Arctic from October 2015-September 2016 compared to the 1981-2010 average. (graph) Yearly temperatures since 1900 compared to the 1981-2010 average for the Arctic (orange line) and the globe (gray). NOAA Climate.gov map based on NCEP reanalysis data from NOAA's Earth System Research Lab. Graph adapted from Figure 1.1 in the 2016 Arctic Report Card.

Monthly change in the total mass (in gigatonnes) of the Greenland Ice Sheet between April 2002 and April 2016, based on GRACE satellite data. The ice sheet lost an average of 268 gigatonnes per year from 2002 to 2016. NOAA Climate.gov graph adapted from Figure 3.4 in the 2016 Arctic Report Card. Background photo from NASA P3-Orion aircraft.

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This animation tracks the relative amount of ice of different ages from 1990 through early November 2016. Seasonal ice is darkest blue. Ice that is 9 or more years old is white. Video produced by the Climate.gov team, based on NOAA and NASA data provided by Mark Tschudi, University of Colorado-Boulder. Data processing by Hunter Allen. Editing by Bruce Sales. Narration by Deke Arndt, NCEI.