Interview: Unusually Warm Arctic May Have Impact on Global Weather

This year will almost certainly go down as the warmest on record in the Arctic, with autumn temperatures soaring 36 degrees F above historic norms.
Jennifer Francis
Jennifer Francis
Among the climate scientists attempting to make sense of the rapid changes sweeping the Arctic is Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University. Francis has propounded the widely discussed theory that swiftly rising temperatures in the Arctic, which are closely intertwined with the loss of sea ice, are changing the shape of the jet stream and altering the weather of the northern hemisphere. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Francis explains why large portions of the Arctic are experiencing temperatures more typical of New York City and warns that we ignore climate upheaval at the North Pole at our own peril. “The speed of the change is what is very disturbing to me,” says Francis, “because it’s such an indicator of what’s happening to the planet as a whole.”
Read the interview.