The Arctic is not doing well. As reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, many regions have recently been transformed: where the snow was, now there is rain, but this is not good news at all. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.
In the coming decades the rain will become the main form of precipitation on most of the Arctic fringes, said John Walsh, chief scientist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As you can imagine, precipitation is taking the place of snow due to global warming.
The polar region continues warming up twice as fast as the rest of the planet and, in addition to causing Arctic sea ice to decline by leading seabirds to starve en masse, the loss of snowpack is exposing permafrost to the open air, large areas of frozen ground that are at risk of in turn release large quantities of greenhouse gases.
October 2021 to September 2022 was the third wettest year in the past 72 years in the Arctic. Warmer temperatures in the future will bring more snow and rain, as more water evaporates from the oceans, while the heat melts sea ice cover, exposing more oceans to evaporation and leading to more rainfall.
