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Predicts 7 degrees Arctic temperatures rise

Frozen Russian Arctic is melting faster than earlier predicted. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Russia’s Emergency Ministry says temperatures in the Arctic will warm up twice as fast as the rest of the globe.

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Global warming is speeding more in Arctic Russia than any other place on earth warns the Emergency Ministry in its latest annual report. 

“In the 21st century, Arctic temperatures will in average rise 2 - 2,5 times faster in the north,” reads the report referred to by RIA Novosti.

The ministry forecasts an average temperature rise around the globe by 2,8 degrees Celsius this century, while in the Arctic the increase will be around 7 degrees. The ministry warns of potential dramatic natural disasters caused by global warming in Russia’s northern territories. 

Another scientific report, published last week by the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, revealed that increasing temperatures in the northern hemisphere already have led to significant changes in the growth of vegetation. 

Plants are now growing several hundred kilometers further north than they did only a few decades ago, reads the report. Trees are now reaching the permafrost as a result of diminished temperature seasonality, that is the difference between summer and winter temperatures.