A melting Arctic has global consequences
As the Arctic melts, the rest of the world will face the consequences of rising sea levels and runaway emissions.
A heatwave is sweeping across the Arctic.
Last month, parts of the Arctic hit 86.5 degrees Fahrenheit — 36 to 43 degrees hotter than average for this time of year. The temperatures come about a year after Siberia hit 100 degrees.
Unfortunately, these record heat waves are part of a larger trend. Over the past 50 years, the Arctic has warmed three times faster than the rest of the Planet, according to a new study.
And as the Arctic melts, it isn’t just polar bears and penguins that will suffer — the rest of the world will face the consequences of rising sea levels, runaway emissions, and even a shifting geopolitical landscape.
“We don’t want to see what that looks like,” Andrew Christ, lead author of that study, told The Washington Post. “It underscores the urgency of needing to change the way things are going right now.”
Much of the world’s sea level rise — and, in turn, the livability of coastal cities — depends on sustaining the world’s ice, congregated mostly at the poles. And more than half of the Arctic’s land ice is tied up in Greenland. As global temperatures continue to rise, though, Greenland’s ice sheet could collapse, increasing sea levels by over 20 feet.
That seems unprecedented And it is, on a human timeline. But by uncovering ancient plants a mile below Greenland’s surface, a research team recently found that Greenland was iceless less than a million years ago. That means that if Greenland was iceless before, it can be iceless again.
But an ice-free Arctic doesn’t just lead to sea level rise — it could release more greenhouse gas emissions, pushing international climate goals out of reach.
“Climate warming is associated with an increase in boreal forest and tundra wildfires, which are also a large and increasing source of black carbon and particulate emissions to the atmosphere,” the study states.
“Zombie fires,” which survive wet winters deep in the Northern Hemisphere and continue to burn through the spring, are becoming more common, too.
But wildfires are dramatically less disturbing than the decline in permafrost. Arctic permafrost has warmed by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius since the 1970s, and landscape observations indicate permafrost thaw across the entire Arctic.
This loss doesn’t just destabilize the ground — hampering roadways and affecting industries from local fisheries to global oil companies — it also exposes centuries-old organic matter.
Permafrost underneath the Arctic alone holds 560 billion tons of carbon, more carbon than has been released since the Industrial Revolution.
And then there’s the economic and political implications.
Russia, cognizant of the strategic implications of a melting Arctic, as well as the security threat of an undefended border, is moving troops north. That could strain relations with the United States and launch what some are calling the Very Cold War.
The melting Arctic is also intriguing for oil companies: about 22% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas is in the Arctic. With Biden’s contradicting endorsement of several huge drilling projects in Alaska, American oil companies are already trying to adapt to this warming Arctic.
“In a paradox worthy of Kafka, ConocoPhillips plans to install “chillers” into the permafrost — which is fast melting because of climate change — to keep it solid enough to support the equipment to drill for oil, the burning of which will continue to worsen ice melt,” writes The New York Times.
Though the future of Arctic ice shelves may be uncertain, one thing is clear: We need to cut emissions, and fast, to avoid runaway ice melt and catastrophic sea level rise. And as we do, we must also adapt to a new, warmer normal — environmentally, economically, and now politically.