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The Geopolitical Game in the Arctic
How rising temperatures can cause rising tensions
The Arctic is experiencing rapid changes in the environment. In 2019, Alaska saw a highly unseasonal 32 Celsius heatwave, fuelling fires that released roughly three times more carbon than the state emits annually from burning fossil fuels.
Arctic air temperature is also rising at twice the pace of the global average. This is caused by feedback loops that amplify warming, meaning “the loss of reflective snow and ice means more solar energy will be absorbed in the ground and ocean, warming the earth, causing more snow and ice to melt.”
Melting Arctic glaciers, led by the Greenland ice sheet, are the biggest contributors to rising sea levels and are rapidly losing mass.
Just this month, polar scientists released an assessment of the Greenland ice sheet. The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-Comparison Exercise (IMBIE) reanalysed data from satellites between 1992 and 2018, measuring thickness, flow and gravity and then combining the observations with the most recent weather and climate models.
The study concluded:
- Ice is being lost seven times faster than in the 1990s. Data from 1992 showed annual ice melt equivalent to 1mm of sea-level rise per decade, but the current figure is 7mm.
