As the Arctic Gets Warmer, Our Winters Get Colder. In the winter of 2015, New York City's Hudson River froze-a rare occurrence. Prior to the 2000s, the record shows that the Hudson froze in 1720, 1780, and 1821-a period that overlaps with the so-called Little Ice Age, when the Northern Hemisphere was cooler overall. But since the turn of the century, the lower Hudson has frozen not once, but twice: in 2015 and 2003. Meanwhile in the Midwest, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded the winter of 2013-2014 as one of the region's coldest on record. That is the year, according to Google Trends, that the terms "Polar Freeze" and "Arctic freeze" entered the public lexicon. We didn't use those terms before because, as a new study released today in the journal Nature Geoscience highlights, we didn't need them. More intense winters (and their increased frequency) are a new phenomenon courtesy of a warming Arctic. Popular Science

 

US Farms Could Suffer as the Arctic Heats Up. Planet Earth is  getting hotter. One of the more confusing aspects of this global trend is the persistent, undeniable discomfort of winter. Even more confusing is when that chilly weather continues into April, May, or godforbidpleasenot June.  This might clear the confusion (but probably not the frustration): Those colder temperatures in the first half of the year might be due to warmer weather in the Arctic. Authors of a new study, published Monday in Nature Geoscience, found this trend looking at over 100 years of climate data from the Arctic and North America. This warm Arctic/cold North America connection has been particularly noticeable since 1990. And that doesn't just mean you'll be wearing a puffy jacket to Memorial Day cookouts from now on. Spring is an important time for agriculture, and the authors noted that US crop productivity declined by as much as 4 percent following warm Arctic years . Wired

 

Norway's Arctic Strategy. The Arctic is important for Norway and for the world as a whole. Foreign and domestic policy are intertwined in the region, and people's everyday lives are affected both by high politics and by day-to-day issues. Here, people are not divided by the ice, but rather joined by the ocean. In the Arctic, our most important foreign policy priority, countries from three continents have found new ways of cooperating, based on common interests and respect for international law. Foreign policy and domestic policy converge in the Arctic. Our efforts to promote an innovative and sustainable North Norway are dependent on peace, stability and well-functioning cooperation with our Arctic neighbors. Norwegian Ministries

 

Is the US Ready for an Arctic Oil Spill? "It seemed truly like the ending of a world. Seabirds were dying by the thousands in the muck. Vast stocks of salmon and herring and halibut would perish next." This description in National Geographic of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is meant to be dramatic. As we've seen time and time again, oil spills have devastating impacts on the environment, wildlife, and local communities, and the effects linger long after the cleanup crews have gone home. Today, as melting sea ice makes oil more accessible, the risk of a spill is moving north into Arctic territories. While a major oil spill has yet to occur in the Arctic, the Arctic Council began to look seriously at oil spill prevention and recovery after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill-the largest marine oil spill in history-which the United States failed to stop from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and was unable to clean up entirely. If this type of spill were to occur in the Arctic, the lack of major nearby ports and unforgiving weather would make response much more difficult, not to mention the devastation to a delicate and already stressed ecosystem. World Policy Blog

 

Warnings of New Arctic Explosions at Some 700-Plus Sites in Yamal Due to Thawing Permafrost. Scientists rush to site of latest tundra eruption - which formed a crater 50 meters deep - amid fears for homes and key industrial sites. Startling details have emerged of last week's methane gas blowout on an Arctic riverbank: a sudden and deafening bang from a large explosion of the ground near a reindeer encampment, fire shooting into the sky and raging for several minutes from the eruption, huge chunks of charred permafrost blown out of the ground, and a deep, eerie crater forming, some 50 meters deep which immediately filled with water. Reindeer and dogs fled in fright. Sand and grass was blackened by the intense heat of the eruption which was described as 'a flame of fire and then a rising pillar of smoke'. Siberian Times