"Arctic sea ice may be gone within three to six years"

 

Svalbard
"Arctic sea ice may be gone within three to six years"
Researchers from the University of Gothenburg sound the alarm in a new study

Christina Nordh

Published 13.19

The Arctic and Svalbard are among the areas in the world most affected by climate change. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

Arctic sea ice may be gone before 2030.

That's what researchers from the University of Gothenburg write in a new scientific article.

Climate change is fastest at the poles and has weakened the ice masses north of Svalbard. And it wouldn't be unlikely if all the sea ice in the Arctic breaks up in a storm one summer in the not-too-distant future.

The researchers believe that it can happen before 2030, perhaps as early as 2027, writes the  Universiy of Gothenburg in a press release.

- The risk of this happening will increase as climate change worsens, says Céline Heuzé, climatologist at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of the new study in Nature Communications, in the press release.

Almost halved ice sheet

This summer, the researchers made an expedition to the Arctic and found that the sea ice was only one meter on average, compared to two to three meters 20 years ago.

- The ice was so thin and "rotten" that we hardly needed an icebreaker for this expedition. In fact, it became stressful to have time to collect the measurement results before we arrived at the next measurement point. The ship could easily make its way through the ice cap, says Céline Heuzé.

The Norwegian ship RV Kronprins Haakon navigates between the ice floes northwest of Svalbard. Photo: Will West/AP

According to the article in Nature Communications, there is a tangible risk of ice-free seas in the Arctic within three to six years – and for the first time in about 80,000 years. This has been arrived at by using models from the UN climate panel IPCC.

Protective cover

According to the scientists' definition, the Arctic is ice-free when the sea ice falls below one million square kilometers. This year, the smallest area was 3.67 million square kilometers.

- Now that the earth has warmed 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-industrial times, there is a real probability that all the sea ice will melt away in the Arctic. The probability increases as it gets warmer, says Alexandra Jahn, professor at the University of Colorado and co-author of the article.

The sea ice is like a protective cover for cold sea water. If it disappears, the heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, which gets a higher temperature. This in turn makes it more difficult for the ocean to freeze into ice. This will fundamentally change the ecosystem in the Arctic, the researchers write.