"Large increases in the potential for extreme weather events were found along the entire southern rim of the Arctic Ocean, including the Barents, Bering and Beaufort Seas," according to the study of Arctic weather by scientists in Norway and Britain.
A shrinking of sea ice around the North Pole, which thawed to a record low in the summer of 2007, was likely to spawn more powerful storms that form only over open water and can cause hurricane-strength winds.
"The bad news is that as the sea ice retreats you open up a lot of new areas to this kind of extreme weather," said Erik Kolstad of the Bjerknes Center for Climate Change in Norway who wrote the study with a British Antarctic Survey researcher.
The U.N. Climate Panel says that a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuels, is stoking a warming that will cause more heatwaves, floods and droughts and rising sea levels."
ORIGINAL SOURCE: Reuters
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