Arctic's record warming driving 'broad change' in environment: study

Global warming is heating the Arctic at a record pace, driving broad environmental changes across the planet, including extreme storms in the mid-latitudes, a major US scientific report said Tuesday.

Persistent heat records have rattled the fragile Arctic for each of the past five years, a record-long warming streak, said the 2018 Arctic Report Card, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The mounting heat in the north is upsetting typical weather patterns, a trend that "coincides" with severe winter storms in the eastern United States and an extreme cold snap in Europe in March, it said.

"Continued warming of the Arctic atmosphere and ocean are driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted and, also, unexpected ways," warned the report.

"New and rapidly emerging threats are taking form and highlighting the level of uncertainty in the breadth of environmental change that is to come."
"Notable extreme weather events coincident with deep waves in the jet-stream include the heat wave at the North Pole in autumn 2017, a swarm of severe winter storms in the eastern United States in 2018, and the extreme cold outbreak in Europe in March 2018 known as the Beast from the East.'"