Temperatures in the Arctic are expected to be 27 degrees Fahrenheit above normal this week, which has scientists unnerved, says The New York Times. In mid-November, temperatures were 35 degrees above the average, before cooling again. But the “heat” has returned.
“Jeremy Mathis, who directs the Arctic Research Program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the warmth had led to a later than usual “freeze-up” of ice in the Arctic Ocean. That in turn may lead to record-low ice coverage in the spring and summer, which could lead to more warming because there will be less ice to reflect the sun’s rays and more darker, exposed ocean to absorb them,” says the Times.
Scientists recently released a report saying that man-made climate change had increased the likelihood of warm spells like this fall’s from about once every 1,000 years to once every 50.
“A warm episode like the one we are currently observing is still a rare event in today’s climate,” said one of the study’s authors, Friederike E.L. Otto, a senior scientist at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford in Britain. “But it would have been an extremely unlikely event without anthropogenic climate change.”