Image courtesy of Pixabay
By Abby Wester ‘22
Staff Writer
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2020 was Earth’s second hottest year on record. Ten of Earth’s warmest years have occurred since 2005. Rising temperatures are threatening the planet, and one of the most at-risk regions is the Arctic.
The Earth’s poles are warming faster than anywhere else on the planet. According to NASA, in the past 40 years, the Earth has warmed about 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit, while the Arctic warmed more than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit. This increased warming in the poles was especially evident in June 2020 when there was a heat wave in Siberia, with the eastern town of Verkhoyansk reaching 38 degrees Celsius, or 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
The heat wave in Siberia resulted in melting sea ice, wildfires, loss of permafrost, infrastructure destabilization and pest invasion.
Research finds that these heat waves are not a part of the Earth’s natural warming process. According to BBC News, a team of U.K. Met Office scientists found that “record average temperatures were likely to happen less than once every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change.”