North Pole Temperatures Climb Near Melting Points

A weather buoy floating 144 km (90 miles) south of the North Pole registered a temperature at the melting point of 32 degrees (0 Celsius) last Thursday. For perspective, the recently recorded temperature at the North Pole is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal. Because, according to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the region should be around -30°C (-22°F).

The Arctic has seen a dramatic transformation in recent years, with significantly warmer temperatures, lower levels of sea ice, and more open water.

In November, the average Arctic sea ice extent — the measurement scientists use to represent the area of ocean where there is at least some sea ice — was 17.7 percent below the averages from 1981 to 2010, according to NOAA. That’s the lowest November extent since the NOAA began keeping records in 1979.

“In reviewing historical records back to 1958, one cannot find a more intense anomaly – except following a similar spike just five weeks ago,” The Washington Post.

  

This is the second time in the past five weeks such a steep rise in temperatures has occurred. In mid-November, temperatures averaged over the high Arctic were also about 30-35 degrees above normal.

As Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said in November:

“IN PARTS OF ARCTIC RUSSIA, TEMPERATURES WERE 10.8 TO 12.6°F [6°C TO 7°C] ABOVE THE LONG-TERM AVERAGE. MANY OTHER ARCTIC AND SUB-ARCTIC REGIONS IN RUSSIA, ALASKA, AND NORTHWEST CANADA WERE AT LEAST 5.4°F [3°C] ABOVE AVERAGE.”

We are used to measuring temperature records in fractions of a degree, and so this is different.

According to The Washington Post, preliminary data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre indicate that the Arctic lost about 148,000 square kilometers (57,000 square miles) of ice in the past 24 hours.That’s enough ice to cover the entire state of Illinois.

While these figures still need to be independently confirmed, we do know that sea ice off the coasts of both Antarctica and the Arctic hit record lows in November. As of December 4, we’d lost 3.76 million square kilometers of the stuff – more than the total area of India.

as of December 4, a hunk of sea ice bigger than India has vanished.source-sciencealert.com

“If nothing is done to slow climate change, by the time global warming reaches 2°C (3.6°F), events like this winter would become common at the North Pole, happening every few years,” said research organisation, Climate Central.

If an unusually warm North Pole stressing us all out just before Christmas is giving you some serious déjà vu, you’re spot on.While the past couple of months have seen unusually rapid spikes in temperature, this isn’t the first time the North Pole has hit melting point. An almost identical event occurred this time last year, when the North Pole crept over 0°C… in winter.