Translated from www.xinhuanet.com 8th, November,2004

The arctic region was undergoing large scale glacial melting. The coverage of oceanic ice had decreased dramatically, and the temperature of permafrost has risen. A report issued on 8th by scientists specializing in climate change on the Arctic region said. They claimed that such discovery could effectively prove that global warming had an important bearing on the arctic region.

The report, Evaluation on the Influence of Arctic Climate, revealed that in the past thirty years, the annual mean amount of oceanic ice in the arctic region had decreased by about 8%, resulting in altogether 908, 400 km of loss in the coverage of oceanic ice. This acreage of loss was even larger than the sum coverage of Arizona and Texas in the US. In the past half century, the annual mean temperature in Alaska and Siberia had risen by 2-3℃. Moreover, the winter mean temperature in Alaska and West Canada had risen by as much as 2.78-3.89℃. The report also confirmed that in the past twenty years, the glacial melting in the arctic region had brought about a raise of about 7.62 cm to the sea level on the earth.

So far the most completed report on the warming in the arctic, it was produced by three hundred plus scientists from eight countries that have their territories within the Arctic Circle, including the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

“These changes in the arctic region primarily illustrated the influence of global warming on the environment and society. Meanwhile, we believed that the artic region was undergoing the warming, and its pace was much faster than that in any other place on the earth.” Prof. Robert Klayer, chairman of the research group told reporters.

He added that the acceleration of warming in the Arctic should arouse attention from the human community, as the Arctic is not only a source region for oil, natural gas and other industrial materials, it also provides daily necessities for the inhabitants and animals there.

The report also forecasted that in the Arctic region in the next one hundred years, the annual mean temperature on land would increase by 3.89-7.22℃, whilst the annual mean temperature over the ocean would increase by 7.22-10℃.