On the Coast of Greenland, Early Arctic Spring Has Been Replaced by Seasonal Extremes, New Research Shows
By Lydia Larsen
For most of the year, snow and ice cover the Zackenberg research station on the coast of northeast Greenland. But every spring the temperatures rise and the ice melts to uncover a landscape of flowering plants, insects and migratory birds that arrive from all over the world to nest through a brief arctic summer.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.