Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment ( ACIA ) ( in German about: climate change impact assessment for the Arctic ) is a given from the Arctic Council -commissioned study on the consequences of global warming in the Arctic. More than 300 scientists describe in detail the climate changes in the Arctic have so far been observed, and which are to be expected in the future.

The ACIA showed that global warming on the Arctic affects in a special way. The air temperatures are rising almost twice as much to the global average, the vast majority of glaciers north of the Arctic Circle pulls back, and the Arctic sea ice has been increasing since a few decades from clear to surface. Animal and plant species migrate from southern regions and interact with the flora and fauna of the Arctic in contact.

In 50 years, the average summer temperature in Alaska and Siberia has increased by two to three degrees Celsius. In winter, there were about three to four degrees Celsius. The researchers expect an increase in average temperatures in the Arctic over the next hundred years, on average on the mainland by about four to seven degrees Celsius. An increase above the sea of seven to ten degrees Celsius, is expected. Should this hold true, the Ice Shelf in Greenland will probably melt completely and the water level to rise by almost seven meters.

Towards the end of the 21st century, the North Pole will be ice-free in accordance with the expectations of the researchers. An area of ​​approximately 990,000 square kilometers of ice has already melted in the last 30 years. The melting of the ice put a feedback mechanism in motion, since the sun's rays would always be less reflected and therefore the heating proceeds at a faster pace.

For those living in the Arctic people of climate change mean According to the report particularly challenging. Traditional ways of life that had been continued uninterrupted since several centuries in part should prove to be no longer suitable. Already today, multipart the number of cases in which Inuit hunters break through and drown too thin gewordenem sea ice. Whole villages have to be moved from coastal areas because houses are in danger of collapsing due to erosion as a result of thawing permafrost. Similar risks are also lurking on the rest of the infrastructure in the Arctic, including especially oil carrying pipelines count.

The researchers base their calculations on the assumption that there is no radical change in the global carbon dioxide emissions. Some damage was irreversible, since it would last at least decades to obtain the warming caused by greenhouse gases in the handle. Other damage can be significantly reduced according to the study but.