1077AUGUST 2003AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY |
T he Arctic has undergone significant temperatureswings over the last 100 years. In the past threedecades, there have been demonstrable Pan-Arctic environmental changes. The areal coverage of sea ice has diminished and sea level pressures in the central Arctic have decreased, resulting in a shift of...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.467.1500 http://www.sel.uaf.edu/manuscripts/056_overland2003.pdf |
| Summary: | T he Arctic has undergone significant temperatureswings over the last 100 years. In the past threedecades, there have been demonstrable Pan-Arctic environmental changes. The areal coverage of sea ice has diminished and sea level pressures in the central Arctic have decreased, resulting in a shift of wind and heat flux patterns. Warmer surface tem-peratures are observed in northern Europe during winter and in Alaska and northwest Canada during spring, there is an increase in the frequency of years with cold temperature anomalies in the lower strato-sphere over high latitudes, and permafrost tempera-tures have risen in Siberia and Alaska, with increased erosion. Satellite estimates of “greening ” have in-creased over both the Eastern and Western Hemi-spheres, with longer growing seasons and changes in the character of the tundra. The influence of warm Atlantic water in the Arctic Ocean is becoming more widespread and intense, with implications for the sta-bility of the upper-water column (Serreze et al. 2000). These changes are robust, and many other biological and physical changes are suggested—increases in cod in the Barents Sea and shrimp off of southern Greenland, increases in calf survival for some caribou populations in North America, and declines and re-distributions of marine mammal populations, al-though the causes for these changes are less certain. It is important to recognize that these events have al-ready occurred or are under way, and that it is desir-able to anticipate their future course or at least assess their potential range. These observed changes have made it more difficult for those who live or work in the north to predict what the future may bring. |
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