It is code red in the arctic, as America’s annual Arctic Report Card is released.

“These are dynamic and dramatic times in the Arctic,” says Jackie Richter-Menge, editor of report card (McClatchy Newspapers). “The outlook isn’t good.”

Produced by the government National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the report card classifies three of its six areas as code red, meaning changes are occurring that are strongly attributed to warming.

These areas are atmosphere, sea ice and Greenland. The remaining three report card areas of biology, ocean and land are code yellow, meaning signals are mixed. On last year’s card only atmosphere and sea ice were code red, with the remaining four areas code yellow.

Huge recent losses of sea ice have led to record air temperatures, with this autumn 5 degrees C above normal, warns NOAA. One bad thing leads to another, explains Richter-Menge (ABC News): “The loss of sea ice allows more solar heating of the ocean, and the more the ocean heats up, the harder it is to grow sea ice.”

For more on this see Nature’s article ‘Arctic sea ice reaches annual low’ from September.

Report card highlights from NOAA:

Atmosphere

5° C temperature increases were recorded in autumn

Sea Ice

Near-record minimum summer sea ice extent

Biology

Fisheries and marine mammals impacted by loss of sea ice

Ocean

Observed increase in temperature of surface and deep ocean layers

Greenland

Records set in both the duration and extent of summer surface melt

Land

Permafrost temperatures tend to increase, while snow extent tends to decrease

Image: Arctic sunset / NOAA Climate Program Office, NABOS 2006 Expedition