The Arctic is unravelling

Abstract

Though many seem to view climate change-related deviations in the Arctic as nothing more than as a distant early warning for the ‘rest of us’, new research indicates that loss of Arctic sea ice could be affecting the jet stream in such a way as to be impacting weather in the northern hemisphere. Uncharacteristically long blocking patterns being linked to the weakening circulation of upper atmospheric winds in the northern hemisphere are being connected not only to the bitter North American winter of 2013/2014 and to the uncommonly cool summer of 2014, but also to extreme weather events, many of them involving copious amounts of precipitation. Hence, changes in the cryosphere a world away, once regarded as largely isolated and innocuous, now appear to be affecting the lives—and livelihoods—of those living in the urban northern hemisphere.