Return of an old chestnut: ‘Nearly all Arctic sea ice could melt by the summer of 2027’ (or maybe 2074?), scientists warn

Arctic Ocean ice [Wikipedia]

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We’re told this is ‘greatly concerning to researchers, who aren’t yet sure what repercussions it might have.’ But the piece mentions “catastrophic” so we get the idea. Snowfall on the Arctic land cancels out sea ice losses to some extent, but the article doesn’t mention it. Earlier predictions of the imminent demise of the summer sea ice were an embarrassing failure.
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Nearly all of the Arctic’s sea ice could melt by the summer of 2027, a group of international scientists has warned. (From The Independent).

Sea ice – frozen seawater that floats on the ocean’s surface – in the region has diminished to near-historic lows following decades of shrinking and thinning in one of the fastest-warming areas on the planet.

The warming has been driven by ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions: the result of humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. [Talkshop comment – that’s just an IPCC hypothesis].

The day when the majority of the ice disappears is greatly concerning to researchers, who aren’t yet sure what repercussions it might have.

Research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications finds the Arctic will be “ice-free” when it has less than 1 million square kilometers of ice. The least amount of sea ice, which typically melts and reforms with the changing of the seasons, in a day this year was at 1.65 million square miles: a stark decline compared to the average between 1979 and 1992.

“The climate models show that unless we can stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius globally in the climatological average, which is becoming less and less likely every month basically, it’s guaranteed that we will see ice-free conditions this century,” Alexandra Jahn, an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the research, told The Independent on Monday.

Nations agreed in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. But, the United Nations said in October that Earth is on the track for as much as 3.1 degrees – and that this could be “catastrophic.”
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But, whether or not it happens, remains up in the air. There’s uncertainty in projections based on climate models. So, it could happen between three years and 50 years.

“These projections are probabilistic, so we’re not saying an ice-free Arctic will happen in three to six years. It’s really three to 50 years. That’s what the models are showing, depending on the variability and the strength of the global emissions … But, it could happen earlier than people might expect …” she said.

To avoid an ice-free day, the world must limit global warming, researchers warn. There is still a possibility that, if the world urgently acts, ice-free conditions may not ever come about, they say.

Full article here.
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Image: Arctic Ocean ice [credit: Wikipedia]