From record warming to rusting rivers, 2025 Arctic Report Card shows a region transforming faster than expected

[marmar]

From record warming to rusting rivers, 2025 Arctic Report Card shows a region transforming faster than expected
Published: December 16, 2025 12:02pm EST

Matthew L. Druckenmiller
Senior Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder
Rick Thoman
Alaska Climate Specialist, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Twila A. Moon
Deputy Lead Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder


(The Conversation) The Arctic is transforming faster and with more far-reaching consequences than scientists expected just 20 years ago, when the first Arctic Report Card assessed the state of Earth’s far northern environment.

The snow season is dramatically shorter today, sea ice is thinning and melting earlier, and wildfire seasons are getting worse. Increasing ocean heat is reshaping ecosystems as non-Arctic marine species move northward. Thawing permafrost is releasing iron and other minerals into rivers, which degrades drinking water. And extreme storms fueled by warming seas are putting communities at risk.For the 20th Arctic Report Card, we worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an international team of scientists and Indigenous partners from across the Arctic to track environmental changes in the North – from air and ocean temperatures to sea ice, snow, glaciers and ecosystems – and the impacts on communities.

The past water year, October 2024 through September 2025, brought the highest Arctic air temperatures since records began 125 years ago, including the warmest autumn ever measured and a winter and a summer that were among the warmest on record. Overall, the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the Earth as a whole.

....(snip)....

A wetter Arctic with more extreme precipitation

Arctic warming is intensifying the region’s water cycle.

A warmer atmosphere increases evaporation, precipitation and meltwater from snow and ice, adding and moving more water through the climate system. That leads to more extreme rainstorms and snowstorms, changing river flows and altering ecosystems. ....................(more)

https://theconversation.com/from-record-warming-to-rusting-rivers-2025-arctic-report-card-shows-a-region-transforming-faster-than-expected-271572

[Timeflyer]

1. Movie on YouTube, "Canary," about paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson about glaciers,

was featured on Daily Show a couple nights ago. Good interview, movie looks great, important.