The Arctic experienced an extreme heat wave during the February 2018. The temperature at the North Pole has soared to the melting point of ice, which is about 30-35 degrees (17-19 Celsius) above normal. There have also been recent studies, indicating the mass of Arctic glaciers has declined significantly since the 1980’s by more than 70%. These sudden climate changes affected not just the Arctic regions, but also the water, food, and energy security nexus throughout the globe. This is why climate scientists from around the world are paying increasing attention to this accelerated warming pattern, commonly referred to as ‘Arctic Amplification’.
An international team of researchers, including Professor Sarah Kang and DoYeon Kim in the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering at UNIST, has unveiled that local greenhouse gas concentrations appear to be attributable to Arctic Amplification.
Published in the November 2018 issue of Nature Climate Change, their study on the cause of Arctic Amplification shows that local greenhouse gas concentrations, and Arctic climate feedbacks outweigh other processes. This study has been led by Assistant Project Leader Malte F. Stuecker from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) in Busan, South Korea and participated by researchers around the globe, including United States, Australia, and China.
Read more at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)
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