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In the News

The Polar Vortex Is Back, and a Warmer Arctic May Be to Blame

January 03, 2017

RESIDENTS OF ANCHORAGE, Alaska, found themselves enjoying a stretch of relatively balmy weather this past December, with temperatures at times climbing above freezing. More southerly cities near the Canada-U.S. border, meanwhile, sat in the grip of a deep freeze, with some double-digit temperature drops triggering extreme cold weather alerts.

Link: The Polar Vortex Is Back, and a Warmer Arctic May Be to Blame

Grab Your Ear Muffs, the New Year’s Arriving With a Frigid Bang

December 29, 2016

A deep freeze is about to descend on North America, Europe and Asia thanks to record high temperatures across the Arctic. How’s that? “Think of it like a seesaw,” said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. If winter temperatures rise north of Alaska, that “forces an equal-opposite downward-southward push. The cold essentially has to go somewhere else.”

Link: Grab Your Ear Muffs, the New Year’s Arriving With a Frigid Bang

The Arctic is ‘behaving so bizarrely,’ and these scientists think they know why

December 23, 2016

Last month, temperatures in the high Arctic spiked dramatically, some 36 degrees Fahrenheit above normal — a move that corresponded with record low levels of Arctic sea ice during a time of year when this ice is supposed to be expanding during the freezing polar night.

Link: The Arctic is ‘behaving so bizarrely,’ and these scientists think they know why

Arctic Is Warming At 'Astonishing' Rates, Researchers Say

December 14, 2016

Scientists released this year's so-called Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, and it is a dismal one. Researchers say the Arctic continues to warm up at rates they call "astonishing." They presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco.

Link: Arctic Is Warming At 'Astonishing' Rates, Researchers Say

Unprecedented Arctic warmth in 2016 triggers massive decline in sea ice, snow

December 13, 2016

A new NOAA-sponsored report shows that unprecedented warming air temperature in 2016 over the Arctic contributed to a record-breaking delay in the fall sea ice freeze-up, leading to extensive melting of Greenland ice sheet and land-based snow cover. Now in its 11th year, the Arctic Report Card, released today at the annual American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco,  is a peer-reviewed report that brings together the work of 61 scientists from 11 nations who report on air, ocean, land and ecosystem changes.

Link: Unprecedented Arctic warmth in 2016 triggers massive decline in sea ice, snow

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