ARCTIC CLIMATE – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

 The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers.
 There is a large amount of variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience
extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter.
 Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice (sea ice, glacial ice, or snow) year-round, and nearly
all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface.
 The Arctic consists of ocean that is largely surrounded by land. As such, the climate of much of
the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below −2 °C
(28 °F).
 In winter, this relatively warm water, even though covered by the polar ice pack, keeps
the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is also part of
the reason that Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic.
 In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they
might otherwise.
 Arctic can be further divided into four different regions:
1. The Arctic Basin – Includes the Arctic Ocean within the average minimum extent of sea ice.
2. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago – Includes the large and small islands, except Greenland,
on the Canadian side of the Arctic, and the waters between them.
3. The entire island of Greenland – although its ice sheet and ice-free coastal regions have
different climatic conditions.
4. The Arctic waters that are not sea ice in late summer – Including Hudson Bay, Baffin
Bay, Ungava Bay, Denmark, Hudson and Bering Straits, and the Labrador, Norwegian,
Greenland, Baltic, Barents (southern part ice-free all year), Kara, Laptev, Chukchi, Okhotsk,
sometimes Beaufort and Bering Seas.
 The climate of the Arctic also depends on the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, and
being absorbed by the surface.
 Variations in cloud cover can cause significant variations in the amount of solar radiation
reaching the surface at locations with the same latitude.
 Differences in surface albedo due for example to presence or absence of snow and ice strongly
affect the fraction of the solar radiation reaching the surface that is reflected rather than
absorbed.
Winter:
 During the winter months of November through February, the sun remains very low in the
sky in the Arctic or does not rise at all.
 Where it does rise, the days are short, and the sun's low position in the sky means that, even
at noon, not much energy is reaching the surface.
 Furthermore, most of the small amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface is reflected
away by the bright snow cover.
 Cold snow reflects between 70% and 90% of the solar radiation that reaches it, and snow
covers most of the Arctic land and ice surface in winter.
  These factors result in a negligible input of solar energy to the Arctic in winter.
Summer:
 At the North Pole on the June solstice, around 21 June, the sun circles at 23.5° above the
horizon. This marks noon in the Pole's year-long day; from then until the September
equinox, the sun will slowly approach nearer and nearer the horizon, offering less and less
solar radiation to the Pole. This period of setting sun also roughly corresponds to summer
in the Arctic.
 As the Arctic continues receiving energy from the sun during this time, the land, which is
mostly free of snow by now, can warm up on clear days when the wind is not coming from
the cold ocean.
 Over the Arctic Ocean the snow cover on the sea ice disappears and ponds of melt water
start to form on the sea ice, further reducing the amount of sunlight the ice reflects and
helping more ice melt.
 Around the edges of the Arctic Ocean the ice will melt and break up, exposing the ocean
water, which absorbs almost all of the solar radiation that reaches it, storing the energy in
the water column.
 By July and August, most of the land is bare and absorbs more than 80% of the sun's energy
that reaches the surface.
 Greenland: The interior of Greenland differs from the rest of the Arctic. Low spring and
summer cloud frequency and the high elevation, which reduces the amount of solar radiation
absorbed or scattered by the atmosphere, combine to give this region the most incoming
solar radiation at the surface out of anywhere in the Arctic. However, the high elevation, and
corresponding lower temperatures, help keep the bright snow from melting, limiting the
warming effect of all this solar radiation.
Record low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere:
 The World Meteorological Organization has recognized in 2020 a temperature of −69.6 °C
(−93.3 °F) measured near the topographic summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet on 22
December 1991, as the lowest in the Northern Hemisphere.
 The record was measured at an automatic weather station and was uncovered after nearly 30
years.
 Among the coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere is also the interior of Russia's Far
East.
 This is due to the region's continental climate, far from the moderating influence of the
ocean, and to the valleys in the region that can trap cold, dense air and create
strong temperature inversions, where the temperature increases, rather than decreases, with
height.
 The lowest officially recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere is −67.7 °C
(−89.9 °F) which occurred in Oymyakon on 6 February 1933, as well as −67.8 °C (−90.0 °F)
in Verkhoyansk on 5 and 7 February 1892, respectively.
Greenland:
  Greenland is divided into two separate regions: (i) the coastal region, much of which is ice
free, and (ii) the inland ice sheet.
 The Greenland Ice Sheet covers about 80% of Greenland, extending to the coast in places,
and has an average elevation of 2,100 m and a maximum elevation of 3,200 m.
 Coastal regions on the northern half of Greenland experience winter temperatures with
average January temperatures of −30 to −25 °C.
 The coastal region in the southern part of the island experience winter temperature with
January’s temperature is considerably higher, between about −20 to −4 °C.
 The inland ice sheet’s winter temperatures are lower than anywhere else in the Arctic, with
average January temperatures of −45 to −30 °C. Minimum temperatures in winter over the
higher parts of the ice sheet can drop below −60 °C (CIA, 1978).
Precipitation:
 The observations that are available show that precipitation amounts vary by about a factor of
10 across the Arctic, with some parts of the Arctic Basin and Canadian Archipelago
receiving less than 150 mm (5.9 in) of precipitation annually, and parts of southeast
Greenland receiving over 1,200 mm (47 in) annually.
 Most regions receive less than 500 mm (20 in) annually.
Past Climates of the Arctic:
 The climate in the Arctic has changed throughout time.
 About 55 million years ago it is thought that parts of the Arctic supported subtropical
ecosystems and that Arctic sea-surface temperatures rose to about 23 °C during
the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.
 In the more recent past, the planet has experienced a series of ice ages and interglacial
periods over about the last 2 million years, with the last ice age reaching its maximum extent
about 18,000 years ago and ending by about 10,000 years ago.
 During these ice ages, large areas of northern North America and Eurasia were covered by
ice sheets similar to the one found today on Greenland.
 Arctic climate conditions would have extended much further south, and conditions in the
present-day Arctic region were likely colder.
 Temperature proxies suggest that over the last 8000 years the climate has been stable, with
globally averaged temperature variations of less than about 1 °C.
What is the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and why does it matter?
 The Arctic Oscillation (AO) refers to an opposing pattern of pressure between the Arctic and
the northern middle latitudes.
 Overall, if the atmospheric pressure is high in the Arctic, it tends to be low in the northern
middle latitudes, such as northern Europe and North America.
 If atmospheric pressure is low in the middle latitudes it is often high in the Arctic.
 When pressure is high in the Arctic and low in mid-latitudes, the Arctic Oscillation is in its
negative phase. In the positive phase, the pattern is reversed.
 Different phases of this oscillation carry consequences across the Northern Hemisphere, either
causing warm and dry winters or blasting unusually cold and wet weather across Europe, China,
and parts of the United States.
Why are temperatures increasing faster in the Arctic than the rest of the planet?
 This is due to Arctic Amplification.
 Arctic Amplification refers to the fact that the Arctic is warming at twice the rate as the rest
of the world. In some parts of the Arctic, the warming is three times that of the rest of the
world.
 As the Arctic loses more sea ice coverage, it loses its bright, reflective surface and opens up
the darker ocean. This darker surface absorbs more solar energy, amplifying the warming
trend. Losing Arctic sea ice clogs up Earth’s air conditioning capabilities.
 More heat is absorbed and less is reflected back into space.

Present Scenario of Arctic Climate:

  The global temperatures are rising and the Arctic is warming at two times and in some
places three times the global average.
 The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report stated that global
average temperatures increased 1.0°C above pre-industrial levels.
 The 2021 IPCC report stated that the world is likely to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming by
2040, if not sooner.
 There are several reasons to expect that climate changes may be enhanced in the
Arctic, relative to the mid-latitudes and tropics.
1. Due to the ice-albedo feedback, whereby an initial warming causes snow and ice to
melt, exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight, leading to more warming.
2. Because colder air holds less water vapour than warmer air, in the Arctic, a greater
fraction of any increase in radiation absorbed by the surface goes directly into warming
the atmosphere, whereas in the tropics, a greater fraction goes into evaporation.
3. Because the Arctic temperature structure inhibits vertical air motions, the depth of the
atmospheric layer that has to warm in order to cause warming of near-surface air is much
shallower in the Arctic than in the tropics.
4. Due to a reduction in sea-ice extent will lead to more energy being transferred from
the warm ocean to the atmosphere, enhancing the warming.
5. Changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns caused by a global
temperature change may cause more heat to be transferred to the Arctic, enhancing
Arctic warming.
 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2001 a,b,c) → over
the last 100 years, the annually averaged temperature in the Arctic has increased by almost
twice as much as the global mean temperature has.
 In 2009, NASA reported that 45 percent or more of the observed warming in the Arctic
since 1976 was likely a result of changes in tiny airborne particles called aerosols.
 Climate models predict that the temperature increase in the Arctic over the next century will
continue to be about twice the global average temperature increase.
 By the end of the 21st century, the annual average temperature in the Arctic is predicted to
increase by 2.8 to 7.8 °C, with more warming in winter (4.3 to 11.4 °C) than in summer.
 Decreases in sea-ice extent and thickness are expected to continue over the next century,
with some models predicting the Arctic Ocean will be free of sea ice in late summer by the
mid to late part of the century.

ANTARCTICA CLIMATE – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTUTRE

 Antarctica is a barometer of the Earth’s climate system which records signatures of global
climate change induced by local (anthropogenic) and remote forcing.
 Antarctic modern climate evolves through an interaction of cryosphere-ocean-atmosphere
system in response to past and present climate forcing.
 Superimposed on the long-term trend of post-glacial warming are millennial and finer scale
oscillations, for example, those associated with the 11-year sunspot cycle.
 In the last 50 years, the near-surface air temperature has risen over the west of the Antarctic
Peninsula, concomitant with an increase in sea surface temperature, retreat of glaciers and the
collapse of ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula.
 The SAM (Southern Annular Mode) index has switched over to positive mode in the last five
decades leading to the intensification and southward shift of the westerlies over the SO, and
warming of the west Antarctica, mostly the Antarctic Peninsula.

Southern Annular Mode (SAM) or Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) is the dominant pattern of
natural variability in the Southern Hemisphere outside the tropics. It is defined as the pressure
gradient between the higher pressure zone (40°S – 45°S) and the low-pressure belt centered on
65°. It varies on annual to inter-annual time scales.

 Cooling of the stratosphere over Antarctica has enhanced the development of polar stratospheric
clouds thereby, intensifying the ozone depletion. As for the ice loss, East Antarctica is stable
compared to the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica.
 The inhomogeneity of Antarctic climate in space and time implies that recent Antarctic climate
changes are due to a combination of strong multidecadal variability and anthropogenic effects
and, as demonstrated by the paleoclimate record, natural variability forced through changes in
orbital insolation, greenhouse gases, solar variability, ice dynamics, and aerosols.
 The scenario of Antarctic climate changes in the 21st century projects warming of the sea ice
zone, reduction in sea ice extent, warming of the Antarctic Plateau, and increased precipitation
in snow form.
 The retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum could be significantly
accelerated by global warming.
 Threshold effects may have a significant impact on the ice sheet and sea ice extent. During the
last glacial and current interglacial, such effects resulted in massive reorganizations of the
cryosphere-ocean-atmosphere system, leading to rapid climate change events.
 Comprehensive satellite data reinforced by ground truth, and modeling of the ocean-ice-
atmosphere system are needed to forecast and quantify climate change with confidence on
regional and global scales.
Past and Present Climate of Antarctica:
 Antarctica, as it appears today exists for the past 60 million years, but it has not always been
located where it is now, nor has it always been so cold. Antarctic history dates back to giant
Southern Hemisphere land-mass known as Gondwanaland, which existed from 500 to 160
million years ago.
 At this time the eastern part of Antarctica formed the core of this super continent which also
included Africa, South America, India, Australia and New Zealand.
 America was the last to separate at around 23 million years before present.
 Antarctic continent is divided into: East Antarctica and West Antarctica
 East Antarctica consists of a stable shield of pre-Cambrian rocks older than 570 million
years and mostly above sea-level. East Antarctica is colder than its western counterpart.
 West Antarctica would be simply a string of islands, if the ice cover were removed.
 The two regions are separated by the Trans-Antarctic Mountains extending from the tip of
the Antarctic Peninsula to Cape Adare, spanning a distance of about 3500 km.
 The present climate over the Antarctica is a result of interaction of the cryosphere-ocean-
atmosphere and can be briefly summarized as follows:
 With a decline in CO2 level and air temperature at above 4°C than the present, ice
sheets were formed around 34 Ma ago.
 The ice sheets spanned all over the Antarctic continent, although they were warmer
and thinner than present.
 With a gradual decrease in global CO2 levels, thick ice sheets covered Antarctica
about 14 Ma ago.
 Ice core records from East Antarctica reveal an early Holocene climatic optimum
from 11.5 to 9 ka ago, followed by a cold event about 8 ka ago, then a return to mid-
Holocene warm conditions, and followed by a slow cooling that ended with the rise
in CO2 post-1850.
 Overlapping on these long-term trends are millennial scale oscillations, some of
which involves relatively abrupt events that saw strengthening of the westerlies and
development of a massive Amundsen Sea Low in the South Pacific, accompanied by
cooling over East Antarctica, between 6000 and 5000 AD and other between 1700
and 1000 AD.

Antarctic Atmospheric Chemistry:

  Over Antarctica, spring-time depletion of stratospheric ozone 10% below normal of January
levels was detected in 1984, by using measurements from ground-based Dobson
spectrophotometers over Halley Bay, Antarctica.

 Figure explanation: A long-term trend derived from satellite observations and ground-
based measurements (ozone-sonde, Brewer spectrophotometer, etc.) suggest that the ozone
hole grew rapidly in size and depth from 1980 to 2000 → because global emission of ozone-
depleting substance like chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from several industrial processes
peaked at 2.1 million tonnes per year; by 2005 it declined by 70% to 0.5 million tones.
State of Antarctic Flora and Fauna:
 There are no indigenous populations of people on Antarctica. However, human habitation of
over 40,000 people visits Antarctica during austral summer, as tourists, scientists or station
support personnel.
 The resource of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters supports a vast number of a variety of
seabirds, which play an important role in the marine ecosystem.
 Penguins and Albatrosses are the best known Antarctic marine birds.
 A group of seabirds called Procellariidae (includes: petrels, prions, fulmars, and
shearwaters) constitute the majority of species that habitat the region.
 Only a few species of Antarctic seabird are adapted to breed regularly on the Antarctic
continent, with Emperor and Adélie penguins, and Antarctic snow petrels, being the most
abundant species. Largest of all birds is the Emperor Penguin.
 Antarctic coastal soils are characterized by → a high content of coarse mineral particles
and total organic carbon, a low C:N ratio, acidic pH, and are frequently enriched in nutrients
due to the influence of sea spray and an input of seabirds.
 Permafrost conditions and high soil water-content is an important constraint for plant growth
in Antarctic regions.
 ‘Cold stress’ is a greater influence on flora and fauna in the Antarctic than Arctic.
  The vegetation of Antarctica consists of → flowering plants namely Deschampsia
antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis, liverworts, 111 species of mosses, 380 species of
lichens and more than 300 species of algae and cynobacteria.
Hydrology:
 The chemical characteristics of water, especially its salinity and nutrient are important
limnological features for microbial diversity of the lakes.
 The Antarctic lakes support the planktonic communities dominated by mi- croorganisms,
including bacteria and phototrophic and heterotrophic protists, and by metazooplankton,
usually represented by rotifers and calanoid copepods, the latter mainly from the Genus
Boeckella.
 Antarctic subglacial lakes form an important component of the basal hydrological system
which is known to affect the dynamics of the ice sheet.
 Over the last few decades, airborne radio-echo sounding has been used to identify a number
of lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
 A decade back, NASA launched the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICEsat) that
uses laser altimeter data to measure surface elevation changes at a high resolution over
glaciers, ice sheet.
 ICEsat satellite observations of subglacial lakes have shown that the ice surface above
subglacial lakes is constantly changing, suggesting that water is flowing between lakes.
Antarctic Warming and Surface Mass Balance:
 During the last 50 years, Antarctica has undergone a complex temperature changes.
 Analysis of Antarctic radio-sonde temperature profiles indicates that there has been a
warming of the winter troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere (3°C – 4°C/decade)
during late winter-/spring-time over the last 30 years.
 The regional mid-tropospheric temperatures around the 500 hPa level have risen by 0.5°C –
0.7°C/decade. The lower part of the stratosphere cooled by 10°C during 1985 to 2002.
 In the lower stratosphere, cooling trends appear to be primarily driven by ozone depletion,
whereas in the upper stratosphere they are the consequence of both ozone changes and in-
creasing greenhouse gas concentrations.
 The largest annual warming trend of 0.56°C/decade during 1951-2000 has been reported for
the western and northern parts of the Antarctic Peninsula.
 The West Antarctic warming has attributed to warming in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
 Reconstruction of temperatures over the past 200 years, based on eight records distributed
over the ice sheet, reveal a warming of 0.2°C for the past century with no discernible trend.
 During the past 40 years the average summer air temperatures of the northeast Peninsula has
been 2.2°C. It is the warmer air and water temperatures that cause an increased melt on the
ice shelf surface, forming ponds of melt water.
 Instrumental records reveal that ENSO warm events are associated with enhanced
precipitation in West Antarctica.
  West Antarctic precipitation was positively correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index
(SOI), until about 1990, after which the two became strongly anti-correlated.
 The decadal variability of the high latitude ENSO to the South Pacific is governed by the
phase of the SAM → When both are in the same phase (i.e., La Niña occurring with positive
phases of the SAM and vice-versa), the teleconnection is amplified; the connection is much
weaker when these two modes are out of phase.
India’s Contribution to Antarctic Research:
 India landed on Antarctica on 9th Jan 1982 and established a base camp on the ice-shelf.
 In 1983-84, a permanent station Dakshin Gangotri was established and commissioned on
the ice shelf, off the Princess Astrid coast in Central Dronning Maud Land.
 In 1988-89, a second permanent station Maitri was built (117 m above mean sea level) on
Schirmacher Oasis situated on Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica.
 The Ministry of Earth Sciences, GoI, on 25th May 1998 established the National Centre for
Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) to handle polar research and logistic activities.
 A third state-of-art station Bharti (43 m above mean sea level) was raised during 2011-12 at
unnamed promontory between Stornes and Broknes Peninsula in the Larsemann Hills. It is
about 3000 km from Schirmacher Oasis where station Maitri stands.
 The Indian Meteorological Department has established an uninterrupted data set spanning
more than three decades.
 The air temperature during 1991-2010 indicated a cooling trend of −0.4°C/ decade. During
the same period wind speed showed an increasing trend of 0.27 kt/decade, with a decreasing
trend of −0.43 kt/decade during 2001-2010; the latter is as a result of less cyclonic
disturbances affecting Maitri.
 Shallow ice coring (<100m) has been conducted to reconstruct the Antarctic paleoclimatic
and environmental conditions by NCAOR.
 The snow samples and ice core packed in polythene containers and shipped in deep-
freezers, which are analysed at a state-of-art ice core repository-cum-laboratory at
NCAOR.
 Based on δ18O measurements on a 30m ice core raised from east Antarctica, the mean
annual surface air temperatures data observed during the last 150 years indicates that the
beginning of the 19th century was cooler by about 2°C than the recent past and the
middle of 18th century.
 Around 125 new species of psychrophilic microbes have been discovered of which India
has contributed around 20 new species and identified two new species of psychrophilic
microbes named as Arthobacter Gangotriensis and Planococcus Maitriensis after
Indian station Dakshin Gangotri and Maitri, respectively.
Recommendation for Future Studies:
Some recommendations for future studies are as follows:
1) Observational program for Antarctica should be taken on a larger scale.
 A high accurate meteorological, glaciological and environmental chemistry data are
needed for determining the trends and their statistical significance.
 Automatic Weather Stations should be installed in remote locations, especially in the
Antarctic Plateau.
2) It is necessary to maintain an appropriate data archive, such that all of the existing data (plus
future data) can be easily accessed and utilized by individual researchers and institutions.
Provisions should also be made so that data available in the future from newer
instrumentation and/or observing platforms can be added to the archive with relative ease.
3) The variability on different scales, ranging from monthly to seasonal to annual to
interannual to decadal, and spatial scales ranging from individual locations to regional areas
to zonal belts to planetary dimensions, needs to be fully documented.