Arctic will be ice free by 2050

The Arctic could be free of sea ice roughly a decade earlier than projected, scientists warn – another clear sign the climate crisis is happening faster than expected as the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution.

A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found Arctic sea ice could disappear completely during the month of September as early as the 2030s. Even if the world makes significant cuts to planet-heating pollution today, the Arctic could still see summers free of sea ice by the 2050s, scientists reported.

The researchers analyzed changes from 1979 to 2019, comparing different satellite data and climate models to assess how Arctic sea ice was changing.

An emerald glass frog (Espadarana prosoblepon) in the Chuchanti reserve, in Darien, Panama, 28 March 2023 (issued 05 April 2023). In the reserve area there are more than 40 camera traps, twenty in the canopy - the layer of branches and leaves formed by the tops of neighboring trees - and the others in the understory - the variety of vegetation that grows in the areas closest to the floor-. The idea is to collect data that allows understanding "the dynamics" of this neotropical forest.

Chucanti, a reserve in the Darien of Panama with an overwhelming biodiversity - 28 Mar 2023

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They found that declining sea ice was largely the result of human-caused, planet-heating pollution, and previous models had underestimated Arctic sea ice melting trends.

“We were surprised to find that an ice-free Arctic will be there in summer irrespective of our effort at reducing emissions, which was not expected,” Seung-Ki Min, lead author of the study and professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, told CNN.

Arctic ice builds up during the winter and then melts in the summer, typically reaching its lowest levels in September, before the cycle begins again.

Once Arctic summers become ice-free, the buildup of sea ice in the colder seasons will be much slower, Min said. The warmer it gets, the more likely the Arctic is to stay free of sea ice further into the colder season.

Under a “higher emissions pathway” – in which the world continues to burn fossil fuels and levels of planet-warming pollution continue to rise – the study projects the Arctic will see a complete loss of sea ice from August until as late as October before the 2080s, Min said.

The study’s findings contrast with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2021 state-of-the-science report, which found the Arctic would be “be practically ice-free near mid-century under intermediate and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.”

This new study shows it could happen 10 years earlier, regardless of emission scenarios, Min said.