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Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress
Arctic within decades. The Arctic has been projected by several scientists to be ice-free in most
late summers as soon as the 2030s.61 This opens opportunities for transport through the Northwest
Passage and the Northern Sea Route, extraction of potential oil and gas resources, and expanded
fishing and tourism (Figure 3).
More broadly, physical changes in the Arctic include warming ocean, soil, and air temperatures;
melting permafrost; shifting vegetation and animal abundances; and altered characteristics of
Arctic cyclones. All these changes are expected to affect traditional livelihoods and cultures in the
region and survival of polar bear and other animal populations, and raise risks of pollution, food
supply, safety, cultural losses, and national security. Moreover, linkages ("teleconnections")
between warming Arctic conditions and extreme events in the mid-latitude continents are
increasingly evident, identified in such extreme events as the heat waves and fires in Russia in
2010; severe winters in the eastern United States and Europe in 2009/2010 and in Europe in
2011/2012;62 and Indian summer monsoons and droughts. Hence, changing climate in the Arctic
suggests important implications both locally and across the Hemisphere.
61 Muyin Wang and James E. Overland, "A Sea Ice Free Summer Arctic within 30 Years?," Geophysical Research
Letters 36, no. L07502 (April 3, 2009): 10.1029/2009GL037820; Marika Holland, Cecilia M. Bitz, and Bruno
Tremblay, "Future abrupt reductions in the summer Arctic sea ice," Geophysical Research Letters 33, no. L23503
(2006); But see also Julien Boe, Alex Hall, and Xin Qu, "Sources of spread in simulations of Arctic sea ice loss over
the twenty-first century," Climatic Change 99, no. 3 (April 1, 2010): 637-645; I. Eisenman and J. S. Wettlaufer,
"Nonlinear threshold behavior during the loss of Arctic sea ice," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106,
no. 1 (January 6, 2009): 28-32; Dirk Notz, "The Future of Ice Sheets and Sea Ice: Between Reversible Retreat and
Unstoppable Loss," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 49 (December 8, 2009): 20590-20595.
62 Overland et al., state that "a warm Arctic-cold continent pattern represents a paradox of recent global warming: there
is not a uniform pattern of temperature increases" due to a set of newly recognized processes described in Overland, J.
E, K. R Wood, and M. Wang. "Warm Arctic-cold Continents: Climate Impacts of the Newly Open Arctic Sea." Polar
Research 30 (2011). The authors raise a critical, unanswered question, "Is the observed severe mid-latitude weather in
two adjacent years simply due to an extreme in chaotic processes alone, or do they included a partial but important
Arctic forcing and connection due to recent changing conditions?" In other words, are recent patterns random
anomalies, or might we expect more of the same?; among other examples, see also Lim, Young-Kwon, and Siegfried
D. Schubert. "The Impact of ENSO and the Arctic Oscillation on Winter Temperature Extremes in the SoutheastUnited States." Geophysical Research Letters 38, no. 15 (August 11, 2011): L15706.
Congressional Research Service
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O'Rourke, Ronald. Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress, report, August 1, 2018; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1248258/m1/24/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.