Climate study: Arctic warming around four times faster than rest of the planet

The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet over the last 40 years, according to new research. This is much faster than the previous estimates by the United Nations’ climate science panel in 2019. At that time, it said the region was warming by more than double the global average due to a process known as Arctic amplification, or intense warming in the Arctic.

However, researchers from the Finnish Meteorological Institute found in a study that the pace of the temperature increase around the North Pole in recent decades was four times higher than the rest of the planet. Presenting their analysis of post-1979 temperatures in the Arctic, even researchers said, some parts of the region, notably the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia, are warming up to seven times faster.

The result is faster melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which leads to greater sea-level rise. But it also affects atmospheric circulation in North America and elsewhere, with impacts on weather like extreme rainfall and heat waves, although some of the impacts are a subject of debate among scientists.

Their study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, analyzed temperature trends in the Arctic Circle between 1979 and 2021 – the modern era of satellite data.