Radical Transformations of the Arctic

By Claire Kang

Troy High School

On December 8, 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 15th Arctic Report Card shared the harmful impact of climate change. This report covers the second-highest air temperatures and second-lowest summer sea ice leading to the loss of snow since first recorded in the 1900's. From the past decade, nine out of ten years have seen air temperatures at minimum 1.8 degrees F, observing from 1981 to 2010 records. However, from the past six years, the records have shown that the overall air temperature has exceeded these previous recordings.

Ever since the introduction of human activities, including destroying terrains for agricultural use, climate change has been a large issue globally. The increase in burning fossil fuels and using forests for human activities has been a serious cause for the drastically changing temperatures. To fill the demands of society, the environment has been harmed in radical methods, leading to the gradual loss of the Arctic region from global warming. Erin Choi, an 11th grade student at Orange Lutheran High School states, “I think the climate change in the Arctic is definitely devastating because as the change occurs, the whole Earth is suffering the consequences created from it. The main cause of this climate change is humans because with all the plastic and greenhouses gases we are forming, it is really destroying the environment.” Followed by Lianna Cha, a student at Oxford Academy said, “It’s melting all the glaciers and rising sea levels right? The main cause I think is us as humans being thoughtless and overlooking the consequences and future impact. People want comfort and money, and they want it now, but people don’t understand the costs of that comfort. So I guess it boils down to the pleasure principle and the need for instant gratification rather than thinking about the future.”

Due to this issue, the 2020 Arctic sea ice extent peaked at the second-lowest measured by the satellite record. The thickness of sea ice cover in the Arctic has transformed to a fragile, thinner ice in the past few years. As the ocean is an environment for countless marine animals, the Pacific Arctic bowhead whales have rebounded as a result of the significant increase in plankton blooms and krill moving northward through the Bering Strait. The warming waters have become favorable for the phytoplankton and other small food sources. Adding on, the annual MOSAiC Expedition, a year-long trip that required drifting through the Arctic Ocean to gather data on climate and the overall ecosystem, has been complicated due to the quick drift experience. This was a result of the thinning ice. In the nearby Siberia region, there were extremely high temperatures that resulted in the lowest June snow extent observed in the past 54 years. Not to mention, the intense wildfires in the Sakha Republic of northern Russia, which was caused by warm air temperatures and extreme snow loss.