The IPCC report on Climate Change 2007 doesn’t focus specifically on a region as small as Alaska. But climate change is expected to hit the Arctic harder than other places on the globe, the scientists said.

“In all cases, you have the most warming in the high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and less warming at low latitudes,” said Susan Solomon, co-chair of the group that wrote the report and presented it early Friday morning in Paris. “So in a world 6 degrees Celsius (about 10 degrees F) warmer on average, it would be considerably warmer than that in the Arctic.”

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“We’d see what we’ve already seen through the second half of the 20th century but with everything becoming more severe,” added Richard-Van Maele, of the World Meteorological Organization. “By the time you get to the end of the 21st Century, some of the models show an ice-free Arctic (in summer).”


A Far North Science story about the report’s release is below.

Although any given decade might be colder due to natural variation (even much colder with more sea ice and expanding permafrost), the long-term trend will be ever more toasty, the scientists said.

  • Alaska’s climate can follow its own path.
  • Check out the temperature change graphs
  • at the Alaska Climate Reseach Center.

    • Alaskans should generally expect more shrubs and trees brushing over tundra. More stressed Interior forests with forest fires and insect outbreaks. More big chinooks. More erosion in coastal and river villages. More deteriorating permafrost that could trigger sinkholes, foundation problems and erosion. Shrinking glaciers. Unpredictable swings in wind patterns and storm tracks. Changes in animal populations as marine and terrestrial habitat changes.

    The report also found:

    • Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate during the past 100 years.
    • Satellite data since 1978 show annual Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 percent per decade, with summer decreases averaging 7.4 percent.
    • The top of the permafrost layer has warmed up to 5 degrees Farhenheit since the 1980s.
    • The area that freezes at least part of the year has decreased by 7 percent in the Northern Hemisphere since 1900. In spring, it’s 15 percent less.