Arctic warming three times more quickly than the planet

The Arctic has warmed three times more quickly than the planet as a whole, and faster than previously thought.

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Climate scientists have known for decades that the Northern Hemisphere was warming faster than the warmer Southern Hemisphere.

Arctic sea ice looks set to be an early victim of rising temperatures, with each fraction of a degree making a big difference, the chance of it disappearing entirely in summer is 10 times greater if Earth warms by 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels compared to 1.5 C, the goal set by the 2015 Paris Accord.

The alarming finding comes from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) in a report timed to coincide with a ministerial meeting this week of the Arctic Council in Reykjavik, which gathers countries bordering the region.

A glaciologist Jason Box at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said that the Arctic is a real hotspot for climate warming.

In less than half a century, from 1971 to 2019, the Arctic’s average annual temperature rose by 3.1 C, compared to 1 C for the planet as a whole.