It is now polar night in the Arctic, darkness reigns almost all over the North Pole. Usually at this time, the region is super cold, and the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean grows and thickens. However, in the fall of 2016, something went wrong: in the Arctic, a super-hot, despite the huge area of cold polar air over Siberia.
A key indicator of the state of the Arctic - the area of sea ice covering the polar ocean - has reached an all-time low. The ice, of course, freezes, as it always does at this time of year, but not as quickly as usual. The ice area is now even lower than during the ice-poor 2012.
The Danish Meteorological Institute reports that the average temperature in the Arctic is 20 degrees Celsius above normal for northern latitudes above 80 degrees. The temperature of the region north of latitude 80 degrees - … -5 degrees Celsius. For comparison, the norm is… -25 degrees Celsius.
For the second year in a row, the temperature at the North Pole rises to monstrously warm levels. In the last days of 2015, temperatures near the pole rose to a melting point thanks to a giant storm that pumped warm air into the region.
Arctic warmth in 2016 is the result of a combination of record-low sea ice area, thin ice sheet and a huge volume of warm, humid air from lower latitudes, which drives a very violent jet stream northward.
Abnormally warm air has flooded the Arctic since October. 19 weather stations surrounding the Arctic Ocean showed that the average temperature was 2 degrees Celsius above the record set in 1998. And in November, the temperature rose even higher.
What will happen next? Time will show and active work on the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement.