According to a recent review article in Science, as climate change and global warming wreak havoc, the Arctic is undergoing a significant upheaval and will be completely different by the end of the century.
The severe effects of climate change are discussed in the study, including record-breaking rainfall, major flooding in the Sahara Desert, and intense summer heat waves that have occurred all around the planet.
It is predicted that temperatures would climb by 2.7 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels as long as global emissions keep increasing. The Arctic, which is warming the fastest on Earth, would be drastically altered in this scenario.
The impact of global warming on the Arctic region was emphasized by the team at the University of Manitoba’s National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Centre for Earth Observation Science.
“The Arctic is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the planet,” stated Julienne Stroeve, the paper’s primary author. More severe and cascading effects, like as sea ice-free Arctic summers, faster melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, extensive permafrost degradation, and more extreme air temperatures, will be seen in this area than elsewhere at 2.7 degrees Celsius of global warming. Infrastructure, ecosystems, vulnerable communities, and wildlife will all be devastated by these changes.
These studies concentrate on the ongoing changes that will occur in the area.
According to researchers, the Arctic region would experience the following consequences as a result of rising temperatures of 2.7 degrees Celsius:
The average daily temperature will be higher than the extremes of pre-industrial temps.
The Arctic will be ice-free for several months every summer.
Sea levels will rise more quickly worldwide if the portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet that has surface temperatures above 0 degrees Celsius for more than a month quadruples from pre-industrial values.
Permafrost at the surface will drop by 50% compared to pre-industrial levels.
