Trouble in
the Arctic

If the Amazon is the lungs of the planet, the Arctic is our circulatory system - helping to regulate global temperatures.

You've seen the pictures: a gaunt polar bear stranded on an ice floe - the living symbol of the devastation of climate change.

We worry for the polar bears, but most of us are unaware that Arctic melting could be just as dangerous for us.

The science

As the Arctic snow and ice melt, bare ground and ocean are exposed. The darker ground and open water absorb the sun's heat instead of bouncing it back to space, warming and causing even more snow and ice melt.

It is predicted that this positive feedback loop could result in the loss of all summer sea ice by as early as 2030.

Find out more at globalclimaterisks.org

How it impacts us

What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.

The dramatic changes in Arctic ice are an early warning of our climate emergency. The Arctic is warming more than 3x faster than the global average. And rapid change in the Arctic increases climate risks globally.

We are increasingly enduring a variety of climate catastrophes across the globe that are linked back to the melting of Arctic sea ice: the loss of sea ice alters weather systems, accelerates glacier melt, and worsens global warming -- disrupting climate far beyond northern waters.

Find out more at globalclimaterisks.org

Arctic ice melt and GHG emissions

While sea ice grows and shrinks naturally with the seasons, increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are driving this crisis towards a point of no return.

Mitigating climate change by cutting net emissions is the only way to get to the root cause of Arctic breakdown, and halt the cascade of risk it sets off for the rest of the world.

Built with Climate TRACE data*, we can finally understand the links between emissions of GHGs and shrinking Arctic sea ice. *Climate TRACE data on this site was last updated March 24, 2023.

Find out more at globalclimaterisks.org