Grim Arctic report card not good for Southwest Florida environment

Southwest Florida is about as different from the Arctic as possible but the two are still connected.

A new report shows melting Arctic ice and warmer temperatures which can have a big effect in Southwest Florida.

“It’s always strange to think that melting in the Arctic, can have direct implications on Florida,” said Joanne Muller, an associate professor of climatology at The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University.

But Muller knows what happens there, impacts Southwest Florida.

“We are going to be the first to feel the effects of the melting that they’re actually seeing in the Arctic right now,” she said.

What scientists are seeing as mapped out in NOAA’s 2021 Arctic Report Card isn’t comforting.

“The report card covers vital signs. And these are topics that get covered every single year. And they include things like surface air temperature, snow, vegetation greenness,” said Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

For instance, the melting Greenland ice sheet.

“And that ice loss, adds volume, adds water to the ocean, and actually influences faraway shores more than it influences Greenland,” Moon said. 

The change could impact shores much further south, Moon said.

“When we think of blue sky flooding, or having higher tidal events, and experiencing really coastal erosion, or saltwater getting into formerly freshwater resources at the coast, these are connected to this Arctic change of losing land ice,” Moon said.

While the Arctic is far from here, the changes are a glimpse to an issue beyond the top of the world.

“It doesn’t really matter where the melting occurs in the world. It’s going to affect us first,” Muller said.