Temperatures at the North Pole skyrocketed 50 degrees above average!

After writing my last post, I told myself to move away from writing on the North and South Poles, since I’ve already written two posts on it.  But I have to say, this news story popped up on my Facebook homepage quite a number of times the past couple of days - which has finally urged me to write a post on it. A little different from how I start my blog post, but I started off today’s post from pure point of interest on the news articles I read about what happened at the North Pole last week, which I then tried to relate my topic on. There will be a small overlap on last weeks post; but it will also serve to expand on the decline of sea-ice cover and its impact on wildlife and the ecosystem, as a consequence of climate change.

Picture displaying the direction of Storm Frank
heading towards the North Pole on the 30^th of
December at 6am. Courtesy of BBC weatherman and
meteorologist at Met office - Simon King’s tweet on Twitter.

So without further ado… I will get right into what happened at the North Pole last week!

You’ve probably heard of the devastating river flooding event that happened across the UK last couple of weeks. Yes, it is the same storm – Storm Frank (or what the media likes to call it the ‘Freak Storm’), and low-pressure system that drove the North Pole to the freezing point (0°C) last week. This is about 50 degrees above its average temperature during this time of the year, making the North Pole warmer than some of the major cities across Britain and the United States!

So what caused the temperature to skyrocket?

The large spike in temperatures was known to be caused by a low pressure system that pulled warm air towards the Arctic region. It was reportedly created by 2 strong air masses - one low pressure mass that crossed the United States and northern parts of Europe, and another high pressure mass that originated from Siberia. As both air masses are moving in different directions, the combination of both pressure systems together pulled warm air from Southern Europe northwards, consequently causing an unusual rise in temperature at the North Pole. The diagram below illustrates this:

Two air masses pulling warm air from Southern Europe northwards, causing spike in temperatures at the North Pole last week

Although currently there are no weather instruments at the North Pole for measuring temperatures, but weather models from satellite predictions and nearby weather bouys have confirmed that temperatures reached 0.7 degrees at the latitude 87.45°N. This is rather an anomaly, as normally during this time of the year, Arctic temperatures are around -20 to -30 degrees. Temperatures reaching above freezing point in December have only occurred 3 times since 1948 at the North Pole.

Green regions shows warm air being force to the North Pole. Colours indicate temperature and lines display wind direction

A Wake Up Call?    2015: Arctic’s Warmest Year Recorded

Melting Ice Caps: Symbolic image on the 
devastating effects of climate change 
at the Poles!

Although this rapid warming event will only last for a limited period of time, with temperature returning to normal very shortly. What is important, however, is to monitor if extreme-warming events like this becomes a regular pattern that causes decline in sea-ice at the North Pole. If events like this become a continuous regular pattern, particularly with strong windstorms that can shift and increase the vulnerability of sea-ice, it can certainly heighten concerns on the stability of the North Pole and its disturbance on the polar vortex.   

While this was certainly an unusual event, one thing that is certainly not an anomaly is the fact that the Arctic region this year experienced unprecedented increase in temperature, with the highest air temperature observed since records began in 1900 according to the Arctic Report Card published last month. As a matter of fact, the 9 lowest Arctic sea ice extent were all recorded in the past 9 years. Sea ice at the Arctic region is increasingly becoming both thinner and younger. In 1985, ‘old ice packs’ – ice that last through a few summers constituted 25% of Arctic ice. In 2015, however, only 3% of the sea-ice at the Arctic was recorded as ‘old ice’. The increasing loss of sea-ice is bringing devastating consequences and responses from wildlife and the ecosystem at the North Pole.

Arctic Amplification of Climate Change. Mean air temperatures in the Arctic region in comparison with the global average air temperature between 1900s-2015. Clearly a large spike in air temperature,especially since the 2000 onwards!  

Consequences on the Arctic Ecosystem

As mentioned last week, the loss in sea-ice can have an immense impact on the marine ecosystem (examples include: fishes, walruses, zooplankton); as well as the terrestrial ecosystem that can influence species interaction, mixing of population, their net productivity and gene flow. 

Diagram illustrating some of the ecological consequences on the decline of sea-ice 

Here are some recent consequences and responses of wildlife observed from scientists:

Hybridization Responses
An increase in population mixing and hybridization between species, in which sea-ice served formerly as a barrier to their movement, has been observed recently at the Arctic region. One of the examples include the hybridization between grizzly bears and polar bears, due to the rising inland presence of polar bears from longer ice-free seasons.

Responses from Walruses

Walruses hauling out on an island offshore in Alaska

Reduction in sea ice cover is nonetheless also a major threat to walruses. Similar to Emperor penguins mentioned in the last post, walruses are dependent on arctic ice cover as their haul-out habitat throughout the year, and for effective breeding and mating. The distribution of walruses is highly correlated with the concentration and extent of ice cover present. Observations indicate that Pacific walruses are now moving out further from the coast shelf area to hunt for their food sources (such as bottom-dwelling creatures) instead of staying near ice edges, as a result of reduction in sea-ice cover. For example, observations of reduction in summer ice coverage at the Chuckchi Sea (situated in the Arctic region) has resulted in walruses increasingly shifting their coast haul out zones out to Alaska and Russia.

Poleward Shift in Fish Communities

Diagram demonstrating the shift of fishes originating from the Atlantic and central Barents Sea to the shallower habitats of the local Arctic cold-water fishes 

Again, you probably recall from the second post on the discussion of fish communities shifting increasingly northwards. A similar observation of a poleward shift in fish communities has been noted in the Arctic region, as a result of loss in sea-ice and warmer temperatures in the Barents Sea (sub-arctic shelf sea). The two maps above illustrate this change between 2004 (left) and 2012 (right). It is clear that warm-water fish populations originating from the Atlantic (shown in red) and central Barents Sea (shown in yellow) is taking over and pushing local Arctic cold-water fishes out of their habitat (shown in purple). The new domination of large generalists fish species has been the result of a reduction in sea-ice that have made it more suitable for large generalists fish species (eg. cod, beaked redfish) at the sub-arctic shelf areas formerly occupied by local Arctic fish species. Smaller Arctic fishes are experiencing increase vulnerability due to this shift, as it is changing species interaction and competition by mixing previously separated fish populations, as well as introducing new predators into the region.

Future challenges

Although there are many examples on the impacts of extreme weather and warming on the dynamics, distribution, population size, and interactions among Arctic species; however, predicting the consequences and responses of wildlife to the changes in climate conditions remains challenging. Identifying shifts in distribution and changes in population size remains difficult due to the time lags in population responses, in particular for long-lived species and with the limited monitoring in Arctic. Nonetheless, another challenge remains on the future responses of human activity to the loss of sea-ice. Increasing decline of sea ice will increase human access to previously remote marine and coastal areas. This could increase the impacts of climate change for species and their habitats, making it harder to detect on future consequence on wildlife at the North Pole.

Thats all for now! Hope you have a great weekend ahead!