Most of us will never travel to Earth’s poles, but every creature on this planet will likely experience the consequences of escalating global warming in the polar north and south. Rapidly rising temperatures are radically altering the freezing, melting and precipitation patterns in the polar regions. And there’s strong evidence those changes don’t stay in the Arctic or Antarctic, but resonate across the world. Scientists now know that events in the far north and south affect global weather, sea level rise, biodiversity, ocean currents and more. Three recent studies add new insights about the effects of warming in the coldest places on Earth — and, by extension, on all of us. Aerial view of a permafrost thaw slump on Herschel Island (Nunataryuk project), Unorganized Yukon, Canada. Arctic permafrost can store greenhouse gases for many centuries, but when that permafrost melts it releases those gases and they add to global climate change. Image by GRID-Arendal via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Arctic shifting from greenhouse gas sink to source For centuries, the Arctic landscape has been a reliable long-term repository for greenhouse gases that, if released in large amounts into the atmosphere in coming years, could significantly accelerate global warming. But since the late 1970s, the Arctic has warmed at least twice — and perhaps almost four times — as fast as the rest of the world, leading to more thawed permafrost, raging record wildfires, and drastic terrain alterations. In March 2024, scientists released a new study of this changing landscape that…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post Polar warning: Warming temperatures mean more than melted ice first appeared on EnviroLink Network.