From 1971–2019, the annually averaged Arctic near-surface air temperature increased by 3.1°C, three times faster than the global average. This finding is based on instrumental data, with interpolation applied over the Arctic Ocean where observations are sparse, and is higher than the increase reported in previous AMAP reports.

New Delhi (ABC Live India): New Findings of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) confirmed that the increase in Arctic average surface temperature between 1979 and 2019 was three times higher than the global average during this period higher than previously reported.

The Warmer Arctic leads to rapid and widespread changes in sea ice, land ice (glaciers and ice sheets), permafrost, snow cover, and other physical features and characteristics of the Arctic environment. These changes are transforming the Arctic, with far-reaching consequences.

This Summary for Policy-makers is an overview of key findings in the AMAP Arctic Climate Change Update 2021: Key Trends and Impacts. Summary for Policy-makers report, which provides updates on key issues and changes since the Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) 2017 assessment and the Arctic Climate Change Update 2019 report.

The report summarizes the latest findings on extreme events; connections between Arctic change and midlatitude weather; ecosystem-climate connections, including impacts and feedbacks; and observed (and in some cases projected) societal impacts of Arctic climate change.

The report also provides updated projections of Arctic climate change from the next generation of climate models and scenarios that will be evaluated as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report.

Each chapter of Arctic Climate Change Update 2021: Key Trends and Impacts. Summary for Policy-makers was written by experts from relevant scientific disciplines and was subjected to anonymous peer review.

The underlying report is fully referenced and is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature or on new results obtained using well-documented observations or models. The peer-reviewed observations, methods, and studies used in the report in a few cases include contributions from Indigenous Knowledge as well as traditional and local knowledge. However, it is recognized that a holistic understanding of the changes occurring in the Arctic requires equitable inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge and local and Indigenous Peoples in assessment processes.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Climate change is the dominant driving force in many of the environmental, economic, and societal transitions in the Arctic today. Along with its direct impacts, climate change acts as an additional stressor on top of existing challenges faced by Arctic communities, industries, and ecosystems. Changes in the Arctic have global implications.

The rapid mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet and other Arctic land ice contributes more to global sea level rise than does the melting of ice in Antarctica. Changes in Arctic ecosystems can induce feedbacks to the global climate system, although the future direction and magnitude of these feedbacks remain unclear.

Wildfires in the Arctic result in carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The availability of new shipping routes; access to oil, gas, and mineral resources; and changes in Arctic fisheries have economic consequences within and outside the Arctic. Climate change also affects species that migrate between the Arctic and southern latitudes.

Arctic Rising Temperature

Climate change is a here-and-now problem in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising far faster than the global average and widespread changes in precipitation, snow cover, sea and land ice, permafrost, and extreme events are transforming the Arctic environment.

From 1971–2019, the annually averaged Arctic near-surface air temperature increased by 3.1°C, three times faster than the global average. This finding is based on instrumental data, with interpolation applied over the Arctic Ocean where observations are sparse, and is higher than the increase reported in previous AMAP reports.

The largest change in air temperature over this 49-year period was over the Arctic Ocean during the months of October through May, averaging 4.6°C with a peak warming of 10.6°C occurring over the northeastern Barents Sea.

Precipitation in Arctic

Total annual precipitation in the Arctic (rain and snow combined) increased by more than 9% from 1971–2019, based on a combination of observed and modeled data. Rainfall increased by 24% during that period, with no net overall Arctic trend in snowfall. The largest increase in precipitation is during the cold season, from October through May.

Permafrost Temperature

Arctic permafrost has warmed by 2–3°C since the 1970s. At many colder permafrost sites, rates of warming over the past 20 years have been greater than any since 1979. The seasonally thawed active layer has grown deeper at many sites since the 1990s, and landscape observations indicate permafrost thaw across the Arctic.

Terrestrial Snow Cover

Arctic snow cover extent during the months of May through June declined by 21% from 1971–2019, with a larger decrease (25%) over Eurasia compared with North America (17%).

River Ice And Water Volume

Arctic rivers are freezing up later in the autumn and their ice is breaking up earlier in springtime. Ice thickness is decreasing on most northern rivers, based on data from Russia, Canada, and Alaska, reducing the risk of spring ice-jam floods.

The volume of freshwater flowing through the eight major Arctic rivers to the Arctic Ocean increased by 7.8?tween 1971 and 2019.

Sea Ice

The extent of Arctic sea ice in September declined by 43?tween 1979 and 2019, and—with the exception of the Bering Sea—sea ice extent and area are declining throughout the Arctic in all months. Sea ice cover also continues to be younger and thinner than during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Over the last 30 years, snow depth on sea ice has declined by more than 33% in the western Arctic. Although thick snow has been observed in some years in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, data gaps make it difficult to draw conclusions about changes in snow depth there.

Land Ice

 All regions of the Arctic are now experiencing net loss of land ice, with the rate of loss increasing in recent decades for several regions (see Figure 2). Greenland is the largest regional source of land ice loss, accounting for 51% of the Arctic total, and land ice loss in the Arctic is a major contributor to global sea level rise.

Trends in Extreme Events

Extreme climate and weather events affect ecosystems, infrastructure, and people. They can also push conditions over thresholds for potentially irreversible change: for example, extreme precipitation following a low but consistent rate of long-term permafrost warming can trigger thermokarst erosion, with potential for the release of carbon dioxide and methane.

Strong evidence shows that warm extremes are increasing and cold extremes are decreasing in the Arctic. Widespread decreases in extreme cold spells1 occurred in the Arctic during 1979–2013, although some areas of Siberia experienced increases in cold spells. Cold spells lasting more than 15 days have almost completely disappeared from the Arctic since 2000.

Evidence for increases in heavy precipitation and inland flooding is much less clear. Similarly, although increases in rain-on-snow and freezing rain events have been reported in some parts of the Arctic, data for the Arctic as a whole are limited and there is not enough information to discern whether widespread changes have occurred.

Coastal erosion is accelerating in many parts of the Arctic, which has some of the highest rates of erosion on Earth. As much as 5 metres of coastline are disappearing annually in some areas of Alaska. The combined impacts of long-term warming (increasing water temperatures, longer ice-free seasons, permafrost thaw) and extreme events (storm-driven waves and swell) are causing the increase.

Arctic Monitoring & Assessment Programme Recommendations for Policies Makers

On the basis of this update, AMAP emphasizes the need for action to both limit future warming and to understand better the consequences of future warming for the Arctic.

To ensure the future vitality and resilience of Arctic peoples, communities, and ecosystems, AMAP emphasizes the need to:

Recommendations Limit Future Change

Because the build-ups of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and some emissions of short-lived climate forcers, are driving Arctic climate change, the Arctic States, Permanent Participants, and observers to the Arctic Council should individually and collectively lead sustained, ambitious, and global efforts to reduce these emissions and fully implement the Paris Agreement.

Expand Monitoring And Documentation Of Arctic Change

The rapid pace of change in Arctic ecosystems calls for immediate action to document what is being lost and what is being created as unique ecosystems are disappearing and the cryosphere is shrinking. Unique ecosystems of the remaining perennial sea ice cover, ice shelves and epishelf lakes, and the Greenland ice sheet are among the priorities for documentation.

AMAP emphasizes the need for Arctic and international science institutions and governments to address key data gaps. The use of satellites, autonomous vehicles, and other emerging technologies, along with community-based monitoring to gather data from difficult-to-reach areas of the Arctic, is encouraged. There is a need to sustain and enhance the development of pan-Arctic climate indicators, which are co-produced with Indigenous Knowledge holders, along with improvements in data sharing and availability, to assist researchers and policymakers at national and regional scales Documentation of the impacts of extreme events on Arctic ecosystems and people can reveal priorities for further evaluation of changes in extreme events.

 In particular, there is a need for systematic assessments of socioeconomic impacts from extreme events in the context of environmental change in the Arctic. Coordination of climate-ecosystem monitoring in regions of rapid change would benefit from comparable observations in regions less susceptible to change, to help constrain predictive ecosystem and resource management models. Changes in coastal ecosystems, intensified by extreme events, affect coastal communities that are increasingly vulnerable to coastal erosion through wave and storm action. Adaptation requires sustained and coordinated climate ecosystem monitoring at key locations in combination with community-driven monitoring that uses Indigenous Knowledge and local knowledge.

Address Information Gaps

Large gaps remain in our understanding of the societal implications of climate change in the Arctic. There is a particular need for more integrated modeling and assessment of climate-related impacts on interconnected socio ecological systems. The impacts of climate change do not occur in isolation and may interact with each other. For example, the combination of rapid springtime warming and heavy precipitation on a deep snow pack triggered nearly 800 avalanches in Greenland in April of 2016.

Understanding the impacts of these types of cumulative and compound effects is important for risk mitigation, hazard response, climate adaptation, and policy response to changing climatic conditions. A better understanding of the potential links between Arctic change and mid-latitude weather could improve forecasters’ ability to predict dangerous extreme weather events in regions far from the Arctic. More research is needed to clarify these linkages. The perspectives of Indigenous Peoples are largely absent from assessments of Arctic change.

Efforts should be made to include information from those who have been most directly affected by climate change and who have the longest history of observations and knowledge with respect to climate change impacts, including extreme events. Large uncertainties remain for projections of Arctic productivity.

Predicting the future productivity of the Arctic Ocean requires a better understanding of the changing productivity associated with sea ice and in open waters, the cycling of nutrients and the adaptive capacity of primary producers to changing conditions. Thresholds in Arctic ecosystems, such as seawater temperature limits for Arctic phytoplankton species or ocean acidification thresholds beyond which pteropods can no longer form shells, need more rigorous evaluation, especially with regard to potential ecosystem shifts. Few evaluations of extreme high temperatures, rapid sea ice loss events, widespread melt events on the Greenland Ice Sheet, and other extreme events in the Arctic have explored their effect on physical and ecological thresholds or tipping points.

Improve Relevance and Availability of Scientific Information for Decision Making

Arctic countries are devoting increasing attention to climate services, which translate climate data into relevant, timely information to support governments, communities, and industries in planning and decision making.

Climate services can play a crucial role in the Arctic, enhancing safety and security in the face of climate-related risks as well as informing the activities of industries such as shipping, tourism, and fisheries, and there is a need for more data and work in this area.

There is an opportunity to improve the flow of data and state-of-the-art climate predictive capacity to climate services organizations, and efforts are needed to develop additional and appropriate climate service products for Arctic communities. Similarly, decision makers could benefit from additional climate information that is directly relevant for planning and decision making, documentation of climate models’ ability to capture extreme events, downscaling of model projections to identify community impacts, guidance for selecting models to use in analyses, and quantification of uncertainties in projections.

Indigenous Knowledge should be considered as an input to decision making, and the participation and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples in research and decision-making processes is essential. There is a need to further develop the understanding of future risks to Arctic ecosystems and communities, including economic costs and benefits, to inform effective and ambitious action by Arctic nations and the rest of world to limit Arctic warming and hasten the transformation toward a more resilient state.

The Arctic Climate Change Update 2021: Key Trends and Impacts. Summary for Policy-makers was presented at the Arctic Council Ministerial in Reykjavik, Iceland on 20 May.

The meeting concluded with a Ministerial declaration and a strategic plan reaffirming the Council’s commitment to a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable Arctic region.

Goal 1 – Arctic Climate: monitor, assess and highlight the impacts of climate change in the Arctic to encourage compliance with the Paris Agreement and support stronger global measures to reduce greenhouse gases and short lived climate pollutants, while strengthening circumpolar cooperation on: climate science and observations; reduction of emissions; climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience; and exchange of knowledge and innovative technologies in support of these efforts

Goal 2 – Healthy and Resilient Arctic Ecosystems: promote pollution prevention, monitoring, assessment, conservation and protection of Arctic biodiversity, ecosystems and species habitats, based on best available science, and respecting the importance of sustainable development for all current and future generations of Arctic inhabitants;

Goal 3 – Healthy Arctic Marine Environment: promote conservation and sustainable use of the Arctic marine environment for the benefit of all current and future generations of Arctic inhabitants, encourage safety at sea, prevention of marine pollution and cooperate to improve knowledge of the Arctic marine environment, monitor and assess current and future impacts on Arctic marine ecosystems, work together to enhance cooperation on marine issues and promote respect for the rule of law and existing legal frameworks applicable to Arctic waters;

The ministerial session marked the end of the two-year Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council and the beginning of the Russian Federation’s Chairmanship for the years 2021-2023.

WMO has observer status with the Arctic Council, which is the pre-eminent intergovernmental forum for cooperation on Arctic affairs. The Council’s Ministerial meeting is held every two years, giving the Foreign Ministers of the eight Arctic States and the political leadership of the six Indigenous Permanent Participants the opportunity to strengthen international cooperation in the region, and review the quality work produced by the Council’s Working Groups.

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) is the working group responsible for monitoring and assessing the state of Arctic pollution and climate change, and for developing science-based recommendations for actions to support policy-making. It’s research informs WMO’s Global Cryosphere Watch programme and polar activities.

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