Water flowing into Arctic warmest in 2,000 years

LONDON - Water flowing from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean is at its warmest level for more than 2,000 years.

The sea in the Gulf Stream between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard reached an average of 6 degrees Celsius in recent summers, warmer than at natural peaks during Roman or medieval times.

Scientists fear the temperature spikes could lead to an ice-free Arctic in years to come and could endanger polar bears, who need the ice in order to survive.

Such changes could also lead to rising sea levels around the world and ‘drastic changes’ to the environment, researchers have concluded, according to the Daily Mail.

University of Colorado researcher Thomas Marchitto, study co-author, said cold sea water “is critical for the formation of sea ice, which helps to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back to space”.

“Warmer waters could lead to major sea ice loss and drastic changes for the Arctic,” he said.

Marchitto said the study does not necessarily prove the change is man-made, but it does “strongly point toward this being an unusual event”.

As data from the water only goes back 150 years, they had to drill into sediment on the ocean’s sea bed to find organisms dating back 2,000 years.

They found that back then the temperature in the Arctic water was on average 3.4 degrees Celsius, but that has now gone up to 5.2 degrees Celsius.

Some summer temperatures have gone even higher - hitting 6 degrees Celsius at times.

The latest findings were presented at the University of Colorado in Boulder US.