The Arctic has long filled humans with awe, but there are now profoundly worrying signals coming from the frozen landscape at the top of our planet, and scientists are deeply con-cerned about its future as the Trump ...
administration pulls the US out of global climate strategy and guts its science agencies.
Last month was extreme: Temperatures in parts of the Arctic spiked 36 degrees Fahrenheit, or 20 Celsius, above normal. By the end of the month, sea ice was at its lowest level ever recorded for February, marking the third straight month of record lows.
This follows a year of concerning signs from the region, including intense wildfires and thawing permafrost pumping out planet-heating pollution.
It paints a grim picture of a region that’s been in rapid decline for the last two decades as humans continue to burn fossil fuels. The Arctic now exists within a “new regime,” where signals such as sea ice loss and ocean temperatures may not always break records, but are consistently more extreme compared to the past, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual health check of the region published in December.
