It’s well established that the slow incremental “press” of rising temperatures is changing the Arctic landscape, threatening the survival of plants and animals adapted to this unique ecosystem. Less noted are short-lived “pulses” of extreme weather — another product of climate change — which can wreak long-term havoc on cold-climate-adapted wildlife and vegetation. These were […]
  • Accelerated Arctic warming is reshaping the polar environment, but focusing only on the impacts of long-term annual temperature rise can miss key consequences of shorter-lived, but extreme, weather shifts coming as a result of climate change.
  • A new meta-analysis highlights how extreme weather events in winter, such as rain-on-snow and temperature spikes, are increasing across the Arctic — though not every region gets the same extreme whiplash weather.
  • Even short surges of wild winter weather — 24 hours of rainfall on snow-covered ground, for example — can decimate animal and plant populations and change an ecosystem for generations. One such rain-on-snow event in 2023 killed nearly 20,000 musk oxen in the Canadian Arctic.
  • Better understanding of Arctic winter weather extremes (along with their immediate and long-term effects on flora and fauna), and factoring these into climate models, could help create more accurate, effective, region-specific conservation plans.

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