This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. MOON: Thank you so much and for speaking about this important issue.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. SHAPIRO: Climate scientist Twila Moon is with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and she's one of the authors of this year's Arctic Report Card - speaking with us on Skype. What we can expect from sea level rise as far as the continued rate of sea level rise and also how much sea level rise we get to over the next 50 to 80 years is still highly dependent on what we people do politically, business-wise, socially in regards to restraining greenhouse gas pollution and really tamping down climate change. And unfortunately, we are going to continue to see sea level rise into the next several decades.īut the future is not completely written here. And this loss does move directly into our oceans and actually most often shows up in low and mid latitudes. This is another year - and now every year since 1998 - that we have seen large ice losses from the Greenland ice sheet, and we're seeing ice loss from glaciers all around the world. MOON: Well, unfortunately, the news right now is not good. So what do the trends that you are documenting in places like Greenland and Alaska mean for places like Bangladesh or Miami? SHAPIRO: Another consequence of melting ice in the Arctic is rising sea levels. And in another instance, as we melt more ice from the Greenland ice sheet, we also make that ice sheet more vulnerable to future losses. Another is as we thaw frozen ground in the Arctic or permafrost, that thawing allows us to better release carbon dioxide and methane, both strong polluting greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere. Certainly, the loss of sea ice leading to a warming ocean and encouraging further sea ice and warming is one of them. MOON: Unfortunately, there are many of these amplifying vicious cycles. Sounds like we're talking about a feedback loop here, where a warming planet leads to a planet that warms even more quickly. SHAPIRO: Just - you're describing the disappearance of sea ice leading oceans to retain more heat. And we see those influences, for example, with some extreme marine trash events in the Bering Strait of Alaska and also differences in the marine soundscape and what animals that live in the ocean are hearing and how they can communicate with each other. And as we're losing sea ice in the Arctic, that's also opening up opportunities for additional shipping and industry. And those warm ocean temperatures can linger into fall and winter, causing disruptions for future sea ice.īut also, we see animals behaving differently in different seasons, difficulties with food access. But if we remove that sea ice, we uncover a very dark ocean surface, and that's good at absorbing heat. And that's what's helping to reflect the additional energy back to space and reduce melt. MOON: If we look at the planet from space, we can imagine looking down on sea ice, and it's very bright. So what happens when there is less of that sea ice in the Arctic? To start with, sea ice reflects sunlight.
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SHAPIRO: A melting Arctic leads to a series of dominoes falling, so let's talk about some of the different knock-on effects. And as a result, we're seeing rapid and really dramatic changes. The Arctic is actually warming faster than most of the globe. MOON: Unfortunately, that's another good indicator of patterns that we're seeing across the Arctic. SHAPIRO: What does that record high in Siberia tell you? Climate scientist Twila Moon is one of the report's authors, and she joins us now. This comes on the same day the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual Arctic Report Card. Today, the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization officially verified that a town in Siberia called Verkhoyansk hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit last year. In the Arctic, it was literally unheard of until now. A 100-degree day is extreme almost anywhere in the world.