Global warming due to climate change has affected the Arctic much more severely than previously assumed, Finnish researchers have found.
According to a new study by scientists from the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, the Arctic region has heated up almost four times faster than the global average over the past 43 years.
Some areas in the Arctic Ocean have even become warmer seven times faster compared to the planet as a whole. Climate models have so far underestimated the so-called polar amplification effect, according to researcher Mika Rantanen.
Past studies had found that the Arctic was heating up twice as fast as other regions, while an Arctic Council working group based in Tromsø, Norway, had reported in May 2021 that the increase in average Arctic surface temperature between 1971 and 2019 was 3.1 degrees Celsius, about three times higher than the global average.
The Finnish researchers attribute their higher estimate to the strong and persistent Arctic warming, but also to their definition of the Arctic - the entire area located within the Arctic Circle - as well as the fact that they considered calculations starting from 1979 - the year when more detailed and thus more reliable satellite images became available.
According to the scientists, the extent of polar amplification is due to both climate change caused by human activities and natural long-term climate fluctuations. Both factors are likely to have led to an increase in amplification over the 43 years, they said.
