Even under optimistic scenarios, things don’t look good for Arctic ice

The chances of there still being ice at the North Pole in the summer in twenty years were not great, but a new study estimates that they are even lower. Even in the scenario where greenhouse gas emissions reach a low level, the ice will disappear for at least part of the year.

THE study published this week in the sheet Nature Communication, lowers the expectations of the IPCC, the UN climate panel. This left open the possibility that, at best, there would still be ice at the North Pole in September, the month in which the amount of ice there is always the lowest.

The authors of the study used the same calculation model for their calculations, but relied more on the actual trend of the past decades, as observed by satellites. The results left them little hope. “Unfortunately, it’s too late to save the summer sea ice at the North Pole,” says Professor Dirk Notz of the University of Hamburg in the British newspaper The Guardian. He is one of the authors of the study.

He points out that scientists have been warning for decades that the North Pole sea ice could disappear in the summer. “People did not listen to our warnings.” Note itself warned three years ago although the first of September without ice will probably occur before 2050.

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Arctic thaw will release methane, which will not only lead to catastrophic climate change, but will also disrupt the global economy. A group of economists and polar scientists are warning against this, reports The Guardian.