Year-round Disappearance of Arctic Sea Ice Before 2100 Under New High Emissions Scenarios

Environmental Research Letters, October 7

The Arctic Ocean will reach an essentially ice-free state year-round (i.e., fully navigable) under the new high emissions scenarios developed for IPCC AR6.  This ice-free state will occur once global temperatures average 4.5°C above pre-industrial, which occurs well before 2100 in nearly all these new emissions scenarios based on CMIP6, which performs better in estimating the sensitivity of Arctic Sea Ice to CO2 emissions. The only scenario under which sea ice does not totally disappear is SSP1-2.6, a scenario that has an average warming of 2.1°C by end of century. This study did not investigate SSP1-1.9, under which warming is kept below 1.5°C by 2100. Although these findings may help draw new strategies for the global maritime industry, on which it focused; the authors did not investigate the consequences of an ice-free Arctic on the global climate system and impacts, such as Greenland ice sheet loss or permafrost thaw; nor on extreme weather events in the Arctic Basin that also would impact shipping.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abb2c8

Compiled by Amy Imdieke