The thawing Arctic threatens an environmental catastrophe

“DUE to the global warming, please keep the Snowhotel door closed” reads a sign at the entrance to what appears to be a giant white mound near Kirkenes, close to Norway’s Arctic border with Russia. The owners want to preserve the frozen friezes of unicorns, reindeer and butterflies that adorn its walls. Patches of translucence in the ceilings of the hotel’s 25 icy rooms suggest the warmth outside is winning. Artificial snow helps build the structure anew each November and it usually disappears before May. The season has shortened in recent years, says one employee; the cold comes later than before.

The Snowhotel’s lengthening off-season is a small sign of an immense transformation in the Arctic, where the environment is changing more rapidly than in the rest of the world. Little can be done to keep its white wastes intact. A great thaw is inevitable as the climate responds to an accumulation of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. International efforts to limit global warming will at best slow the changes, perhaps making the consequences merely terrible rather than catastrophic.