The Heating of the Arctic

Bryce Cullen
Staff Writer

​        Everyone has heard of climate change and just how serious things are getting with this issue. Yet in the Arctic, these issues are occurring even faster than the rest of the world. According to the research of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Arctic is heating up two times faster compared to the rest of the world.  With that, the temperature shift in the Artic shows how the climate will change throughout the globe. Along with the study, they have found an increasing average in air temperature from October 2015 to September 2016, the highest since 1995 at 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit. With the influence of Greenhouse gasses, this marks the highest average on record. These changes could have permanently changed the terrain of the artic; it is causing more sea ice to melt, and the Perennial sea ice is melting drastically. The Perennial sea ice of the Arctic is the portion of ice that normally survives its yearly summer melt season. However, recent studies reveal that this part of the sea ice is decreasing at an alarming rate. Research has also found that within the Perennial sea ice is stored carbon. Thus when it is melted it is released into the atmosphere, exacerbating the effects of greenhouse gas tolls on the climate and weather patterns.  

       Nevertheless, there are still actions we can take to possibly reverse these effects of greenhouse gases as well as the accelerated heating of our Arctic and the geography of the world we have come to know. The excess water released in these ice caps and the artic will dramatically warp the land surface of the globe. Therefore, our coastal cities are in great danger if we do not act quickly to reverse this trend of melting…