Arctic Report Card 2022: Rapid climate change brings extreme events to the North
Alaska Public MediaDec 13, 2022
On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released the 16th annual Arctic Report Card, which examined the region's "vital signs" between October 2021 and September 2022. The report highlights the numerous ways climate change continues to warm the Arctic faster than the rest of Earth.
According to the report, the average surface air temperature of the once reliably-frozen landscape was the sixth warmest recorded since 1900 — the past seven years collectively being the warmest on record. The increased temperatures, the report says, are causing shifting seasons and unpredictable disturbances.
Human actions are causing the radical transformation of the Arctic, leading to natural disasters like typhoons, wildfires, and increased rain. As a result, indigenous people are having their lives uprooted, and more than 400K people are having their way of life threatened. Humanity must do whatever it can to stop this dangerous trend.
Despite all the alarmist rhetoric about the Arctic, studies and temperature reconstructions show the region was actually warmer over the past 10,000 years than it is today. Agenda-driven climate extremists may hate these facts, but the Earth's climate is constantly changing, and that includes the Arctic.
There's a 50% chance that the maximum Antarctic sea ice extent will be at least 18.5 million sq km by 2023, according to the Metaculus prediction community.