The Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and assessment Programme (AMAP) recently released a Summary for PolicyMakers’ Arctic Climate Change Update 2024.
It is one of several stock taking exercises on the regional and global states of Earth’s climate. The other reports include the 2024 European State of the Climate (ESOTC) report, NOAA’s Assessing the Global Climate in 2024, Berkeley Earth, and the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) state of the climate 2024.
So why bother with several similar assessments? One reason is that they have been written by different people who independently come to the same conclusion: Earth’s climate is changing at a fast pace, and 2024 was the warmest year measured in modern times.
The warming in the Arctic is particularly fast due to an effect known as the polar amplification.
Another question is why we should care about the changes in the Arctic that are documented in the most recent AMAP report. There are several changes in the Arctic that will affect both the globe as well as the mid-latitudes.
Melting land ice contributes to a higher global sea level. The overall Arctic ice loss has contributed far more to global sea-level rise than any other region on Earth.
Thawing permafrost may release methane into the atmosphere, which subsequently increases the greenhouse effect and leads to further global warming.
The report also contains a chapter on the link between the Arctic climate and the weather over North America, Europe and Asia. The mechansism involves movements of the polar vortex over continents that can may result in air outbreaks.
Reduced sea-ice cover and and more acidic ocean may affect marine ecosystems, which indirectly may affect the rest of world through the food chain and trade.
There is also a question whether changes in the salinity of the Arctic seas, such as increased melting of ice, more precipitation and changed river runoff may destabilise the ocean circulation, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). It is related to changes in the hydrological state, but is not discussed explicitly in this latest report. The European climate would dramatically change if the AMOC stopped.
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