ABR in the 2024 Arctic Report Card
- Nick Moser
- Dec 13, 2024
- 2 min read
J.J. Frost and Matt Macander have lead the Tundra Greeness section of the Arctic Report Card for 5 years running, and they plan to continue this important work in the future. The full report card can be seen here: https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/report-card-2024/
Notable findings from the 2024 Arctic Report Card
In the air
Arctic annual surface air temperatures ranked second-warmest since 1900.
Autumn 2023 and summer 2024 were especially warm across the Arctic, with temperatures ranking 2nd and 3rd warmest, respectively.
An early August 2024 heatwave set all-time record daily temperatures in several northern Alaska and Canada communities.
The last nine years are the nine warmest on record in the Arctic.
Summer 2024 across the Arctic was the wettest on record.
In the ocean
In September 2024, the extent of Arctic sea ice, which has a profound influence on the polar environment, was the sixth-lowest in the 45-year satellite record.
All 18 of the lowest September minimum ice extents have occurred in the last 18 years.
Arctic Ocean regions that were ice-free in August have been warming at a rate of 0.5 degrees F (0.3 degrees C) per decade since 1982.
In most of the shallow seas that ring the Arctic Ocean, August mean sea surface temperatures were 3.6–7.2 degrees F (2–4 degrees C) warmer than 1991-2020 averages, while the Chukchi Sea were 1.8–7.2 degrees F (1–4 degrees C) cooler than average.
Plankton blooms — the base of the marine food chain — continue to increase in all Arctic regions, except for the Pacific Arctic, throughout the observational record of 2003–2024. However, in 2024, lower-than-average values were dominant across much of the Arctic.
Ice seal populations remain healthy in the Pacific Arctic, though their diets are shifting from Arctic cod to saffron cod with warming waters.
On land
“Many of the Arctic’s vital signs that we track are either setting or flirting with record-high or record-low values nearly every year," said Gerald (J.J.) Frost, senior scientist with ABR, Inc. and veteran Arctic Report Card author. "This is an indication that recent extreme years are the result of long-term, persistent changes, and not the result of variability in the climate system.”
