The loss of Arctic sea ice has long been a graphic measure of human-caused climate change, with wrenching images of suffering polar bears illustrating a worsening planetary crisis. Now, new research has found that Arctic Ocean sea ice is shrinking even faster than previously thought — and that the Arctic may start to see its first “ice-free” days within the current decade.
That troubling milestone could occur before the end of the decade or sometime in the 2030s — as many as 10 years earlier than previous projections, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. The study defines “ice-free” as when the Arctic Ocean has less than or 386,000 square miles of ice.
“It’s no longer a remote possibility that might happen at some point,” said Alexandra Jahn, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Unfortunately, it basically occurs under all the emission scenarios in our climate models, so it seems like it’s going to happen, and so we need to be ready for that.”
By midcentury — 2035 to 2067 — the Arctic could see consistent ice-free conditions in September, the month when sea ice concentrations are typically at their minimum, the study found.
The precise timing of such losses depends on how soon humanity is able to reduce fossil fuel emissions that are contributing to global warming. Under a high-emission scenario in which fossil fuel use continues unabated, the Arctic would be ice-free between the months of May and January by 2100, the study says.
Even under a low-emission scenario, the Arctic would still be ice-free between August and October by that same year.
Climate models dating to the 1970s have long predicted the possibility of reaching ice-free summer conditions in the Arctic under sufficient warming, but the latest research has helped nail down just how quickly it may happen, Jahn said.
The consequences of such a change are not yet fully understood, but considerable effects on ecological systems, wildlife and local and global climates are likely.
“The more emissions the world puts into the atmosphere, the more months we could see an ice-free Arctic,” Jahn said. She added that even in a reduced emissions scenario, “children born today will see ice-free conditions at least in September, and every couple of years in October and August.”
The study paints a vivid picture of a changing planet where the formerly “white Arctic” defined by its ice is transformed into a “blue Arctic” characterized by open water.
Yet the decline of Arctic sea ice has been well documented since at least 1979, when continuous satellite observations began. Since then, there has been a roughly 40 percent loss in surface area and a 50 percent loss in thickness, according to Walter Meier, a senior researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who was not involved with the study.
Meier said the study’s assessments are plausible, although the most urgent finding involving an ice-free day within the decade “may be a little aggressive.”
Still, he said, “given the emission scenarios that we’re following, it’s really a matter of when, not if, we’ll get ice-free conditions.”
Indeed, the study comes as the planet continues to experience unprecedented heating driven by climate change and this year’s El Niño, with January becoming the eighth month in a row to experience record warmth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
February data were not yet available, although early findings point to continued heating, including the warmest meteorological winter in the United States.
The global surface temperature in January was 2.29 degrees above the 20th century average of 54 degrees, NOAA found. Global sea ice extent was the seventh smallest in the 46-year record at 6.90 million square miles, or 440,000 square miles below the 1991-2020 average, for the winter month.
Jahn said some research has found there is still a 10 to 20 percent possibility of avoiding an ice-free Arctic altogether if the global temperature stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming on a 20- to 30-year mean.
