Arctic warming woes remain

WASHINGTON (AP) — The rapidly melting in the Arctic eased up this year. But the government said global warming is still dramatically altering the top of the world, reducing the number of reindeer and shrinking snow and ice, while increasing certain fish and extending the growing season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its report card for the Arctic on Thursday, portraying 2013 as moderate compared with the roasting 2012.

Overall, Arctic temperatures didn’t soar quite as high, and Greenland ice sheets and summer sea ice didn’t melt as much.

“The Arctic caught a break, if you will, in 2013, but one year doesn’t change the long-term trend toward a warmer Arctic,” said report card editor Martin Jeffries, a University of Alaska geophysicist who is the science adviser to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.

“The Arctic has shifted to a new normal,” Jeffries said at the American Geophysical Union scientific conference in San Francisco, where the 136-page report card was released.

While 2013 looks a tad cool compared with the last six years, it is unusually warm compared with the 20th century, he said.

Central Alaska’s summer was one of the warmest on record, coming months after its coldest April since 1924, NOAA reported. Fairbanks experienced a record 36 days of more than 80 degrees. And snow cover in May and June was near record low levels in North America and broke a record for the least snow in Eurasia.

But one of the biggest climate change indicators, summer sea ice, wasn’t as bad as expected. Sea ice in 2013 reached its sixth-lowest level in the three decades NOAA has kept track. That’s up from the lowest ever in 2012.