Photo: Pixabay/Kanenori 

The planet’s climate is a finely tuned system prone to the so-called butterfly effect whereby a change in one area of the world can have consequences in another far away.

A case in point, says an international team of scientists, is that warming in the Arctic during winter causes temperature anomalies thousands of kilometers away in East Asia where vegetation might be stunted in their growth, flowering plants might blossom later and crop yields might diminish.

“During the past few days, the east coast of the United States experienced heavy snowfall and low temperatures as far south as Florida. Warmer Arctic winters are now also triggering extreme winter weather of this kind in East Asia,” explains the team, whose members come from Switzerland, South Korea, China, Japan and the United Kingdom.

At the same time, cooler southern winters reduce vegetation activity in the subtropics and affect ecosystems even in the spring while diminishing the agricultural productivity of cereals, fruits, root vegetables, and legumes.

These are bold claims, but the scientists combined earth system modelling, satellite data and local observations for a new study in which they also analyzed sea surface temperatures from the Barents-Kara Sea. What they have found is that in years with higher than average Arctic temperatures, changes in atmospheric circulation triggered anomalous climate phenomena throughout East Asia.

In especially cold years vegetation growth was stunted and crop yields lessened as a result of delayed blossoming, they note. At the same time, vegetation in East Asia experienced a decrease in its carbon uptake capacity, reducing its ability to store atmospheric CO2.

Importantly, the research has highlighted how complex the effects of climate change are, its authors say.

“While we observe strong warming in the Arctic system, especially over the Barents-Kara Sea, we have now discovered that this warming affects ecosystems thousands of kilometers away and over multiple weeks through climate teleconnections,” explains Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, an associate professor of Earth System Sciences at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

“Arctic warming is not only threatening the polar bear, but will affect us in many other ways,” she adds.

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