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https://www.sciencealert.com/summer-sea-ice-may-vanish-from-the-arctic-in-just-10-years-scientists-warn>
"A lone polar bear, marooned on a shrinking slab of sea ice, has become a
heart-wrenching poster child for the effects of climate change in the Arctic.
New climate models from an international team of researchers predict that in as
few as 10 years, that iconic creature could have nowhere left to stand in the
warmest summer months.
That's decades before previous climate models predicted. The sixth report from
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2021,
estimated a loss of Arctic sea ice by the midcentury at the earliest and
possibly as late as 2100.
Scientists criticized those projections as too conservative.
Emerging evidence supports those criticisms and suggests past predictions, like
those from the IPCC, really did underestimate the urgency of the Arctic's
situation.
In 2020, for instance, another climate model also predicted summer sea ice
could disappear in the icy north as soon as 2035.
The newest model is yet another dire update. It's based on observational data
of sea ice collected between 1979 and 2019. It clearly shows significant
melting events throughout the year that are well beyond natural variability and
far more pronounced in the summer months.
When researchers in Germany, South Korea, and Canada projected these patterns
into the future, they found sea ice disappearing in the Arctic summers starting
in the 2030s, and this was apparent no matter how many fossil fuels were
burned.
For a lower emissions scenario, the models predicted ice-free moments that were
shorter and confined to the end of summer. In a high emissions scenario, on the
other hand, the Arctic was estimated to be free of sea ice from August to
September."
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
