Headline
The Arctic is a Seriously Weird Place Right Now
Arctic
The sun set on the North Pole more than a month ago, not to rise again until spring. Usually that serves as a cue for sea ice to spread its frozen tentacles across the Arctic Ocean. But in the depths of the polar night, a strange thing started to happen in mid-October. Sea ice growth slowed to a crawl and even started shrinking for a bit.
Intense warmth in both the air and oceans is driving the mini-meltdown at a time when Arctic sea ice should be rapidly growing. This follows last winter, when temperatures saw a huge December spike.
Related Content
Science Source
| World Weather Attribution
Unusually high temperatures at the North Pole, winter 2016
Science Source
| Geophysical Research Letters
Accelerated increase in the Arctic tropospheric warming events surpassing stratospheric warming events during winter
S.‐Y. Simon Wang, Yen‐Heng Lin, Ming‐Ying Lee et al
Science Source
| Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
EEE 2016: CMIP5 Model-based Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Highly Anomalous Arctic Warmth During November–December 2016
Jonghun Kam, Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng et al
Headline
Dec 12, 2017 | Mother Jones
The Arctic is warming faster than at any point in the past 1,500 years