WASHINGTON—The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its annual Arctic Report Card today. The report release is much anticipated given scientific agencies are already projecting 2024 will be the hottest year on record. Notably, the last 18 years have marked the lowest 18 for annual minimum sea ice extent in the satellite record and this year gave evidence the Arctic was a net carbon source rather than a reliable carbon sink.
Below is a statement by Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Dr. Ekwurzel was also a co-author of the fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II. Prior to joining UCS, she conducted climate research in the Arctic, including the North Pole.
“With each passing year, the vital signs of the Arctic continue to amplify the pace of change with 2024 proving no different. The ongoing release of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere has caused the Arctic region for the past eleven years to warm at a rate several times faster than the Earth as a whole. These combined changes are contributing to worsening wildfires and thawing permafrost to an extent so historic that it caused the Arctic to be a net carbon source after millennia serving as a net carbon storage region. If this becomes a consistent trend, it will further increase climate change globally. On top of that, food sources for ice seal populations are shifting due to water temperature changes and hotter, wetter weather is stressing and decimating inland caribou herds.
“The climate catastrophe we’re seeing in the Arctic is already bringing consequences for communities around the world. The alarming harbinger of a net carbon source being unleashed sooner rather than later doesn’t bode well. Once reached, many of these thresholds of adverse impacts on ecosystems cannot be reversed. Furthermore, what happens in the Arctic has wide-reaching implications for the entirety of North America and Eurasia. From more intense snowstorms and more frequent polar vortex disturbances to long-lasting extreme heat domes, no place will be left unaffected by the consequences of Arctic heating and ice sheet contribution to global sea level rise.
“These sobering impacts in the Arctic are one more manifestation of how policymakers in the United States and around the world are continuing to prioritize the profits of fossil fuel polluters over the wellbeing of people and the planet and putting the goals of the Paris climate agreement in peril. All countries, but especially wealthy, high-emitting nations, need to drastically reduce heat-trapping emissions at a rapid pace in accord with the latest science and aid in efforts of climate-vulnerable communities to prepare for what’s to come and help lower resourced countries working to decrease emissions too.”
Dr. Ekwurzel has extensive experience doing live and taped TV, radio and print interviews with international, national and state media outlets. If you have any questions or would like to arrange an interview with her, please contact UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes.