Study says humans only partly responsible for warming Arctic

Arctic ice (Credit: Pink floyd88 a, via Wikimedia Commons)

A University of Washington study found that human activity is only partly responsible for the warming and melting of the Arctic, according to New Scientist.

Although greenhouse gas emissions play a part in rising Arctic temperatures, waves of warm air flowing from the Pacific Ocean are to blame for the past decade’s record melts as well as the current global warming “hiatus.”

The study, led by University of Washington’s Qinghua Ding, analyzed temperature data from 1979 to 2012. Using climate models, Ding and his team simulated the cooling of Pacific, and found that the lack of both evaporation and rising warm air resulted in high-altitude warm air being pushed into Greenland and northeast Canada.

Image: Arctic ice (Credit: Pink floyd88 a, via Wikimedia Commons)