Summer 2023 Showed How Much Faster The Arctic Is Changing Than Even A Few Years Ago

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The Northwest Passage, which allows ships to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Canadian archipelago, was relatively ice-free by late August. Ice extent along the passage was among the lowest ever observed via satellite. The Northern Sea Route, which runs along Russia’s northern coast, was slower to open to ships, but a path of open water cleared up by late August. The Northwest Passage has long been an object of fascination as a means to dramatically reduce shipping distances and costs, and especially since 2007, when dramatic melting first opened it up. Recent research found that year brought a retreat of Arctic ice that was so dramatic, it marked a fundamental and irreversible change.

Chinook and chum salmon populations in western Alaska — which have been collapsing for decades, devastating communities that rely on the fishery — were well below average in 2023, though they rebounded slightly from a record low in 2022. Abnormal and enduring summer heat across Canada meant that waterways such as the Yukon River became too warm for a species that thrives in frigid waters.

Sockeye salmon, on the other hand, surged to record high abundance in southwestern Alaska’s Bristol Bay in 2022, the most recent year for which data was available for the report. The warming climate means the fish are heading out to sea sooner, rather than living in upstream lakes and rivers until they mature. The diverging salmon fortunes show that, when analyzing how climate change will affect complex ecologies, it’s impossible “to take a paintbrush and broad brush,” said Rick Thoman, lead editor for this year’s report card and a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. The two species “have different life histories,” he said. “The details matter a lot.”

When a torrent of water flowed down the Mendenhall River toward Juneau, Alaska, in August, sweeping away homes and dramatically eroding shorelines, it was “a direct result of dramatic glacial thinning over the past 20 years,” the report found. Floods have been occurring annually as meltwater from Mendenhall Glacier flows past an ice dam, but this one was far larger than any other ever seen.

Temperatures at Summit Station, a research outpost in central Greenland, neared 33 degrees June 26. It was only the fifth time temperatures at the station rose above freezing in 34 years of observations. In the fall months, Summit Station’s average temperature was about 10 degrees below zero — more than 13 degrees balmier than normal and a record high. An increase in snowfall across much of Greenland (another symptom of a warming Arctic climate) offset some ice losses this year, but they were still dramatic. At one site in southern Greenland, the ice sheet surface lowered by nearly 16 inches during a single week in June.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/12/arctic-climate-change-ice-warming/

https://wapo.st/41pirme