This is the 33rd issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the …
We examine the response of Arctic sea ice to projected aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions changes under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios in simulations of the Canadian Earth System Model. The overall decrease in aerosol loading causes a warming, largest over the Arctic, which leads to an annual mean …
The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at current rates, this warming will lead to the widespread thawing of permafrost and the release of hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 and billions of tonnes of CH4 into …
The indigenous people of Greenland, the Inuit, have lived for a long time in the extreme conditions of the Arctic, including low annual temperatures, and with a specialized diet rich in protein and fatty acids, particularly omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). A scan of Inuit genomes for signatures of adaptation …
Low nitrogen availability in the high Arctic represents a major constraint for plant growth, which limits the tundra capacity for carbon retention and determines tundra vegetation types. The limited terrestrial nitrogen (N) pool in the tundra is augmented significantly by nesting seabirds, such as the planktivorous Little Auk (Alle alle). …
Mosquitoes will appear in much greater numbers in the Arctic as it warms because of climate change, with negative consequences for caribou and the indigenous people who live off them, researchers warn. The survival rates for Arctic mosquitoes will increase by more than 50% with a 2C temperature rise in …
In addition to melting icecaps and imperiled wildlife, a significant concern among scientists is that higher Arctic temperatures brought about by climate change could result in the release of massive amounts of carbon locked in the region’s frozen soil in the form of carbon dioxide and methane. Arctic permafrost is …
In yet another sobering sign that climate change is drastically altering our planet, National Geographic has updated its "Atlas of the World" in what it calls "one of the most striking changes in the publication's history." The 10th edition of the atlas now features a much smaller Arctic ice sheet. …
Following the post of my colleague, Dana Nuccitelli on misreporting of ice trends, this article is a timely guest post by Neven Acropolis who runs the Arctic Sea Ice blog. “After the record smashing 2012 melting season had ended, Arctic sea ice watchers awaited the following melting season with a …
New data shows that in 2013 Arctic ice actually grew rather than retreating as climate change models had predicted. Far from proving climate change is a myth or that ice retreat has ended, as skeptics are now claiming, this reveals something much more interesting about our warming climate. The research, …
Retired Nasa scientist James Hansen who first rang the climate alarm bell in 1988, is now back with a study that points to major sea level rise in the next 50 years owing to speeding up of glacier melt. In what Hansen says is his most important paper on climate …
In a report titled 'State of the Climate in 2014,' the American Meteorological Society has described 2014 as the warmest year on record. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has also reported that the January-June 2015 period was the hottest on record, citing figures provided by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic …
Polar bears across the Arctic region face a shortage of food in the summer due to increased melting of ice Polar bears are unable to adapt their behaviour to cope with the food losses associated with warmer summers in the Arctic. Scientists had believed that the animals would enter a …
Surface weather conditions are closely governed by the large-scale circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere. Recent increases in the occurrence of some extreme weather phenomena have led to multiple mechanistic hypotheses linking changes in atmospheric circulation to increasing probability of extreme events. However, observed evidence of long-term change in atmospheric circulation …
A divided federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an effort by a coalition of environmental groups to revoke federal approval of Royal Dutch Shell Plc's oil spill response plans related to drilling on Alaska's remote Arctic coast. By a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the …
Several environmental groups sued the United States on Tuesday to derail Royal Dutch Shell PLC's plan to drill in the Arctic Ocean as soon as July. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, gave conditional approval in May to Shell's resumption of …
Environmental impact of leasing area off Alaskan shore to Shell was insufficient, say action groups A dozen environmental groups have told a US federal court they are renewing a challenge to the leasing in 2008 of areas off Alaska’s north-west shore, where Royal Dutch Shell hopes to drill exploratory wells …
The string of massive snowstorms and bone-chilling cold on the US east coast, as well as flooding in Britain and record temperatures in Europe, are linked to rapid ice loss in the Arctic, new research appears to confirm. While the rapidly-thawing Arctic cannot be held responsible for specific weather events …
Arctic marine mammals (AMMs) are icons of climate change, largely because of their close association with sea ice. However, neither a circumpolar assessment of AMM status nor a standardized metric of sea ice habitat change is available. We summarized available data on abundance and trend for each AMM species and …
The continental shelves of the Pacific-Arctic Region (PAR) are especially vulnerable to the effects of ocean acidification (OA) because the intrusion of anthropogenic CO2 is not the only process that can reduce pH and carbonate mineral saturation states for aragonite. Enhanced sea ice melt, respiration of organic matter, upwelling, and …
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) depend on sea ice, where they hunt ice-associated seals. However, they are opportunistic predators and scavengers with a long list of known prey species. Here we report from a small fjord in Svalbard, Norwegian High Arctic, a sighting of an adult male polar bear preying on …
