It’s polar night in the Arctic, and temperatures ought to be plunging. But the opposite is happening. Meanwhile, sea ice in the Arctic is at a record low.
From Washington Post:
“Despite onset of #PolarNight, temperatures near #NorthPole increasing. Extraordinary situation right now in #Arctic, w/record low #seaice,” added Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.
This is the second year in a row that temperatures near the North Pole have risen to freakishly warm levels. During 2015’s final days, the temperature near the Pole spiked to the melting point thanks to a massive storm that pumped warm air into the region.
So what’s going on here?
“It’s about 20C [36 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than normal over most of the Arctic Ocean, along with
cold anomalies of about the same magnitude over north-central Asia,” Jennifer Francis, an Arctic specialist at Rutgers University, said by email Wednesday.
