Climate Change in the Arctic Region from 1948 to 2018

The last three decades show successively warmer temperatures at Earth's surface while the Northern Hemisphere has experienced its warmest 30-year period in the past 1400 years. Air and ocean warming results in greater induced stress on Arctic sea ice which has continued to decrease in recent years. In this study we analyzed and interpreted Arctic region air and sea surface temperatures (SST) and ice data to see if we can verify and quantify a warming trend. We used the datasets COBE-SST2 and Sea-Ice as well as NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 from 1948 to 2018, both provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL. The COBE-SST2 and Sea Ice dataset was regridded to match the spatial resolution of NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis at 2.5°. In ArcMap, eight raster sea-ice concentration layers were created using North Pole orthographic projection to display changes over time. After widely observing changes, one cell experiencing significant change was chosen to further analyze the grid cell centered on 72.5° North and 22.5° West. For this grid cell, time series of air temperature, SST, and ice concentration were extracted and then analyzed in Excel. Average monthly air temperature and SST showed an increase throughout the timeframe with the strongest trend occurring in winter months between 1979 and 2018. During this period December air temperature has increased by 0.8°C/10 years and January SST has increased by 0.5°C/10 years. Sea-ice concentration decreased between 1948 and 1980 and since 1980 there has been no ice existent in this grid cell. As temperatures continue to rise, the consequences are countless. Melting sea-ice contributes to rising sea levels and alters ocean currents, acidity, ecosystems, among others with extensive effects on the environment and ourselves. By changing our behaviors contributing towards global warming we need to mitigate this situation.