Climate Change 4 crazy things that are happening in the Arctic right now
World Economic Forum
July 19,2019
By Johnny Wood
A number of unusual events are sweeping across the Arctic as global warming disrupts weather patterns, the landscape, and the way of life in the icy wilderness.Here are four ways our warming world is affecting the region.
1) Starving polar bears are travelling vast distances to Russian cities
Residents of Norilsk, a small industrial city in northern Russia, were greeted by the sight of an emaciated polar bear stumbling through the streets. According to the Siberian Times, the exhausted animal is thought to have travelled up to 1,500km from the Arctic Ocean, crossing the vast Taymyr Peninsula into Russia to find food.
2) Wildfires are choking Alaska
For the first time in almost 100 years, Alaska is experiencing average July-to-June temperatures above freezing. The unseasonable heat is thawing and drying vast tracts of the far-northern snow forests, leaving the tundra susceptible to wildfires, which ravage the land.
3) Permafrost is melting 70 years ahead of schedule
A recent Arctic expedition found alarming rates of decline in Arctic permafrost, which is melting far faster than scientists had predicted.
4) A heatwave has hit the most northerly inhabited spot on the planet
Personnel stationed at a military base in Alert, Canada, have experienced the unlikely event of an Arctic heatwave. The settlement, also home to a weather station, has the distinction of being the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth. This year’s summer temperatures have reached a record 21°C, far exceeding the region’s average July temperature highs of 6°C.
Much more here
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/4-crazy-things-that-are-happening-in-the-arctic-right-now/
= new reply since forum marked as read
