Climate crisis: summer 2020 left ‘deep wound’ in Earth’s frozen places, UN agency warns

Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as global average fuelling a ‘vicious circle’ of global warming, the World Meteorological Organisation says

The warning comes amid wildfires in Siberia, sea ice at nearly record lows, and the collapse of one of the last fully intact Canadian ice shelves

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A view of the North Pole in August from the German icebreaker RV Polarstern, which was able reach the area because of large openings in sea ice that would normally make shipping in the region above Greenland too difficult. Photo: Markus Rex/Alfred Wegener Institute via AP

Published: 8:40pm, 1 Sep 2020Updated: 9:43pm, 1 Sep 2020

The United Nations’ weather agency says this summer will go down for leaving a “deep wound” in the cryosphere – the planet’s frozen parts – amid a heatwave in the Arctic, shrinking sea ice and the collapse of a leading Canadian ice shelf.

The World Meteorological Organisation said on Tuesday that temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as the global average, provoking what spokeswoman Clare Nullis called a “vicious circle”.

“The rapid decline of sea ice in turn contributes to more warming, and so the circle goes on and the consequences do not stay in the Arctic,” Nullis said during a regular UN briefing in Geneva.

The weather agency said in a statement that many new temperature records have been set in recent months, including in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk. The town, located in Siberia above the Arctic Circle line, reached 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) on June 20.

Activists from the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion march with placards in the British capital on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

“What we saw in Siberia this year was exceptionally bad, was exceptionally severe,” Nullis said. She noted a heatwave across the Arctic, record-breaking wildfires in Siberia, nearly record-low sea ice extent, and the collapse of one of the last fully intact Canadian ice shelves.