For the month shown, an exception occurs for snow - covered regions
at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere.
He began seeing firsthand the impacts of climate
change at high latitudes where the sea ice is melting rapidly due to human - caused global warming.
This was an episode of rapid and intense warming (up to 7
°C at high latitudes) which lasted less than 100,000 years (see Figure 1).
Particularly for those of our ancestors who
lived at higher latitudes, there was no reliable, year - round source of carbohydrates.
In addition, they find that accounting for vegetation feedbacks leads to increased warming in
summer at higher latitudes and a reduction in summer warming at lower latitudes.
The global atmospheric circulation is characterized by air slowly rising in the tropics into the upper atmosphere and
sinking at higher latitudes.
The increases in precipitation
seen at higher latitudes are a result of increasing amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere.
Above that level, a reversal of the horizontal temperature gradient occurs, which produces a reduction in the wind speeds of the jet
stream at high latitudes.
Scientists search for clues in the earth's surface conditions such as tropical sea surface temperatures and snow
cover at higher latitudes.
This is especially true for
lakes at high latitudes that are covered in ice each winter but may see less ice as temperatures rise.
It is thought that the resulting rising temperatures led to a greater emission of methane from
wetlands at high latitudes, in a positive feedback effect.
Waves with a period of 24 hours dominate at low latitudes, whereas those with a characteristic period of 12 hours are more
important at high latitudes.
Also, the species has shown some susceptibility to human disturbance — a threat that may increase substantially with increased shipping and
infrastructure at high latitudes.
In the tropics carbon is returned to the atmosphere within a few decades,
whereas at high latitudes won't it last much longer and even simply build up in the soil indefinitely?
Cool phases in turn are marked by low temperatures, low sea levels, and the presence of continental ice sheets, at
least at high latitudes.
The first difference arises because annual average temperature change is greater than summer temperature
change at high latitudes, but the mass balance sensitivity is greater to summer change.
Although our study confirms a benefit of ongoing climate change on plant growing conditions
at higher latitudes because of fewer freezing days, this considerably underestimates the full extent of consequences of projected climate changes, particularly under business - as - usual projections.