ARCTIC: Climate Shifts & more – 11th Feb 2025

Bures from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 11th of February twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

Even though the Arctic may seem far away from most people, its changes will affect the daily lives of the whole world. Researchers published a study on Thursday the 6th, in the journal Science, detailing how global warming will transform the Arctic and impact the world. By the end of the century, the world may warm by nearly three degrees Celsius, which is five degrees Fahrenheit.

This warming will leave the Arctic Ocean largely ice-free, accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and eliminate half of the world's permafrost, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. These changes will raise global sea levels and intensify extreme weather events. The study serves as a critical warning, saying that immediate action is necessary to protect the Arctic and mitigate global suffering.

Worrying changes in the Arctic are happening right now. On Tuesday the 4th, The Guardian reported that an extreme warming event passed over the north pole a few days earlier, with temperatures at the north pole rising over twenty degrees Celsius, almost seventy degrees Fahrenheit, above average, causing ice to melt. North pole temperatures normally stay well below freezing until at least April, but months before the ice should start to melt, we are already seeing the coldest places on Earth warming to worrying levels.

The North Pole wasn’t the only Arctic area seeing record warming. On Thursday the 6th, Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring agency, revealed that in January, Arctic sea ice hit a record low, contributing to the hottest January ever recorded worldwide. This result has surprised climate scientists, with the world supposedly within a La Niña weather pattern period of global cooling. Yet the Arctic continued to warm as sea ice fell to six percent below average in January, the second lowest ever recorded after the twenty eighteen record. Copernicus reported that western Alaska and eastern Canada suffered the most intense ice melt, with Europe managing to avoid the worst of the warming event.

The changing sea ice conditions in Alaska are affecting daily life in unexpected ways. On Tuesday the 4th, the newspaper Anchorage Daily News reported that in late January, floating sea ice severed a fiber-optic cable running along the floor of the Beaufort Sea on Alaska’s north coast. That cable is a key piece of Northern Alaska’s broadband infrastructure, and as a result, internet access has been disrupted or broken for over 20,000 residents in the region.

A similar situation occurred in twenty twenty-three, with the same cable cut by sea ice in June. The twenty twenty-three repair took three months to resolve, but with this cut taking place in winter, the cable owner Quintillion expects weather conditions to prevent internet access from being restored until about August, leaving much of Alaska’s remote communities cut off from reliable communications.

Another big change happening in northern waters is the size of Russia’s navy fleet. In a report published by the Norwegian Intelligence Service on Thursday the 6th, Russia’s northern fleet is facing an increasing gap between its ambitions and available resources. The Northern Fleet is Russia’s largest naval fleet, but with Russia deploying most of its resources to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the northern fleet has been left in a state of disrepair.

Even though Russia aims to have the most powerful fleet in the Arctic, the report states that all of Russia’s shipyards on the Kola Peninsula, bordering Norway, are unable to conduct new repairs and two of Russia’s most powerful warships are years behind schedule in completing repairs.

Elsewhere in the Russian seas, Russia’s Arctic natural gas industry is preparing for a new EU import ban with one last big push. On the 1st of March, the EU will implement a natural gas transshipment ban, which will end Russia’s ability to sell energy worldwide via EU ports with ease.

On Friday the 7th, shipping news agency gCaptain reported that Russia has readied a fleet of icebreakers by the Yamal gas project in northwestern Russia to make one final trip to the EU before March to sell natural gas before the new ban begins. The ban will apply to around twenty percent of Russian gas from the Arctic.

Moving over to Greenland where the fallout from US President Trump’s aim to take control of the country continues. On Tuesday the 4th, Mute B. Egede, Greenland’s Prime Minister, announced that the country’s general election will be brought forward to the 11th of March. The election was due to take place in April, but amid fears of foreign intervention in the election process, Greenland’s Parliament agreed to hold their election earlier than planned.

Along with the issues of relations with the US, the top campaign issue for Greenlanders is national independence. Every political party in the country supports independence from Denmark, but has varying promises on how and when this could be achieved. With Greenland in the international spotlight, this could be the most important election in the Arctic island’s history.

Denmark’s kingdom is not only facing threats from Greenland. On Thursday the 6th, the second largest political party in the Faroe Islands called for Denmark to reform its kingdom to allow the Faroes more autonomy. Bárður á Steig Nielsen, chairman of the Sambandsflokkurrin party, proposed that Denmark should create a new Self Governance Act which would allow the Faroe Islands to conduct their own foreign policy and enter into trade agreements with other countries without Danish influence.

In other news, on Thursday the 6th, the Northwest Territories government unveiled its next annual budget, which resulted in an almost $120 million US dollar surplus after significant cuts. The territory has been facing economic challenges and in the face of increasing debt, the government’s finance minister asked the territory to make cuts worth about $100 million US dollars.

Even though the budget does allow for some spending on Indigenous communities, some Members of the Legislative Assembly expressed concerns that the budget does not sufficiently support the needs of smaller communities.

Investment in Indigenous communities is being made in Norway. On Friday the 7th, the Norwegian Sami Parliament Council announced that they have had their twenty twenty-five state budget increased by about $5 million US dollars by the Norwegian government. This investment comes a day after Sami National Day, and this money will be used to support Sami Language Centers across Norway.

Silje Karine Muotka, the Sami Parliament President, called this a historic investment boost that is greatly needed to prevent the extinction of the Sami language. Each of the twenty language centers will be given a boost of about $50,000 US dollars, which will allow them to hire additional staff and create more language courses to keep the Sami languages alive.

Over the border in Finnish Lapland, tourism is facing big changes. On Monday the 10th, Finnish broadcaster YLE reported that new EU rules will crack down on greenwashing. The ban will prevent the use of vague marketing terms like carbon-neutral and eco-friendly unless companies provide evidence. YLE notes that many tourism operators in Lapland have been using phrases such as carbon neutral and world’s cleanest without evidence, and that if Lapland wants to retain its public image of a sustainable tourist destination, it must actually act sustainably.

Let’s finish the week with a huge boost to our knowledge of the Arctic. On Monday the 10th, the Seabed twenty thirty Project announced their newest release of the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean, which is mapping the seabed of the Arctic Ocean for the first time in human history. In this newest map release, 1.4 million square kilometers, over 500,000 square miles, of the Arctic have been added to the global seafloor map, getting us closer to the project’s goal of mapping the entire ocean by twenty thirty.

To see this new map yourself, take a look at the link in the show notes.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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