Ominous milestone in the Arctic which could happen by 2027
The Arctic Ocean could see its first ice free day within this decade, scientists warned this week.
Both polar regions of our planet are currently covered with ice year-round, with the ocean at the North Pole reliably looking white.
But a new study published in Nature warned that it could soon go blue with open water, much earlier than anticipated.
Although there is a lot of uncertainty in predictions, with the right (or wrong) weather conditions, the region could even be classed as ice free for a day by 2027.
Previous models have mainly looked at the first ice free month rather than day, which is thought to be coming around 2050, the study said.
Although researchers said the first ice free day is unlikely to happen by 2030, there is a non-zero possibility of it happening, with the highest probability lying within 7–20 years.
How did they work it out?
Researchers ran 300 separate simulations of when the Arctic Ocean is likely to be ice free, ranging from now until 2100.
Nine of the simulations showed the ocean going ice free for at least one day by 2030.
To be classed as ice free, the ocean doesn’t literally have to have no ice at all. Scientists class it as such when sea ice covers a surface area of one million km or less.
Researchers said that early ice free days were likely to be caused ‘during a rapid ice loss event’ and are associated with a warm winter and spring, followed by summer storms.
So if it were to happen by 2030, there would be a high impact sudden loss to take it over the threshold.
The first ice free day ‘has primarily symbolic significance’, the report said, and would not immediately affect sea levels as this ice is already all in the sea.
But an ice free Arctic Ocean during summer would still accelerate climate change, as it would make the upper ocean warmer, and it could ‘induce more extreme events at mid-latitudes’.
It would also harm the already-stressed Arctic ecosystem, from the emblematic polar bear to the crucial zooplankton, researchers said.
Authors said that of the earliest ice free scenarios, future emissions do not play too much of a role as they depend more on individual weather events.
They said that there’s still a chance we can avoid an ice free day at all, but it would only under the lowest emissions scenarios.
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