The Arctic Ocean Might Be Ice-Free For A Part Of The Year By 2044, And We Should Be Worried
UCLA climate scientists discovered that human-caused climate change is on its way to making a functionally ice-free Arctic Ocean starting between 2044 and 2067. Sea ice is critical to the Arctic ecosystem and to the fishing industry and indigenous peoples who depend on that ecosystem.
Arctic Ocean will be functionally ice-free for part of each year, starting sometime between 2044 and 2067, and this is all thanks to climate change pushed to the brink by us.
The slow death of the Arctic Ocean due to climatic conditions is unfortunately becoming a common story; the Arctic is heating twice as fast as the global average. Sea ice is rapidly shrinking, changing the delicate composition of one of the world's most pristine ecosystems.
Reuters
With each new study that comes out about it's slow decline, we are inching closer to catastrophe. The change in the arctic ecosystem has far-reaching consequence in our lives.
A new study by UCLA climate scientists discovered that human-caused climate change is on its way to making a functionally ice-free Arctic Ocean, starting between 2044 and 2067.
Scientists have been attempting to predict the future of Arctic sea ice for several decades, relying on an array of global climate models
Reuters
The new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change already shows ice-free Septembers as early as 2026, while others suggest that the phenomenon will begin as late as 2132.
The study's lead author, Chad Thackeray, an assistant researcher at UCLA, said one reason predictions about sea ice loss diverge so much is that they differ in how they consider a process called sea ice albedo feedback.
Reuters
The process occurs when a patch of sea ice completely melts, uncovering a seawater surface that is darker and absorbs more sunlight than ice would have. That change in the surface's reflectivity of sunlight, or albedo, causes greater local warming, which in turn, leads to further melting of ice, researchers said.
The cycle exacerbates warming - one reason the Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe, they said. Thackeray and co-author Alex Hall, a UCLA professor, noted that sea ice-albedo feedback not only happens over long periods of time due to climate change, but also happens every summer when sea ice melts for the season.
Satellite observations over the past few decades have tracked that seasonal melt and resulting albedo feedback, they said.
"Arctic sea ice is a key component of the earth system because of its highly reflective nature, which keeps the global climate relatively cool," Thackeray said.
Sea ice is critical to the Arctic ecosystem, and to the fishing industry and indigenous peoples who depend on that ecosystem. The changes that are happening in the Arctic don¡¯t just affect the Arctic. Our planet is an interconnected system, and the vanishing ice is already having ripple effects across the world. So, we can only imagine how huge will be the impact of disappearance of ice (for a part of the year) from the Arctic Ocean.
