Fundamental changes in the Arctic
Large overview study on the effects of climate change
The Arctic is currently undergoing "fundamental changes" due to global warming, according to a new overview study in Environmental Research Letters. Utrecht researcher Bert Wouters is one of the authors of the study.
The list of changes in the area is long and worrying, the study describes. The temperature is rising, precipitation is increasing. This causes Arctic river discharge to rise, the height of the snow line to rise and an accelerated loss of land ice. These downward trends also show in the thickness and extent of the sea ice in the Arctic. The permafrost continues to heat up and the thickness of the spring snow cover is decreasing.
Great shock
"My research area is particularly land ice, on Greenland and in Alaska and Canada. But when I saw all these figures together, it was still a big shock to me. The changes are going so fast," says Wouters to NOS, who interviewed him (in Dutch) about this publication.