Arctic temperatures rising but not record highs: Chinese scientists

BEIJING — The Arctic is warming rapidly, but did not see a record high-temperature this February, according to Chinese scientists.

A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Atmospheric Physics, analyzed the air temperature at Ny Alesund, where the Chinese Arctic station is located, and warned about fast warming in the Arctic, but pointed out that the temperature in February was not a record high.

The research found that Ny Alesund had the fastest warming in the Arctic. The daily mean temperature (DMT) in the region reached 3.3 degrees centigrade, with a maximum temperature of 4.4 degrees centigrade on Feb.26 this year. However, this is not the highest in history. The DMT at Ny Alesund has the record of 3.5 degrees centigrade, and a maximum temperature of 4.9 degrees centigrade on Feb 5, 2017.

According to Professor Zou Han, research team leader, the temperature in Ny Alesund is increasing fast, and the highest DMT in February has increased 11.1 degrees centigrade since 1998, which could be related to changes in the north Atlantic current.

CAS started an observation campaign at Ny Alesund from June 2017 and uses observational equipment such as lidar and UAV to detect atmospheric processes to study the rapid warming of the Arctic, according to Zou.

The Arctic region is a sensitive area of global climate change, and its temperature increase is far greater than that in middle and low latitudes, making it an important destination for global climate change research.