The Arctic is “unraveling”, as the region warms more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, according to scientists. The finding was made by a team of 90 researchers who also reported declining sea ice and melting glaciers, The Independent reported. Between 2011 and 2015, the Arctic warmed at a faster rate than at any time since records were kept at around 1900. The amount of snow cover has halved since 2000–evidence of the rapidly rising temperatures. As a result of the changes, global sea levels are set to rise faster than previously thought. The new estimates are almost double those previously made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013. The findings are included in the latest Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic report that is compiled every few years by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program. The last edition was published in 2011. “The take-home message is that the Arctic is unraveling,” Rafe Pomerance, the chair of conservation organization Arctic 21 “The fate of the Arctic has to be moved out of the world of scientific observation and into the world of government policy.”
