Summer sea ice blanketing the Arctic Ocean is retreating slowly today, but it’s likely to reach a tipping point within 40 years, abruptly breaking up and giving way to open water, according to a new study.
The study faults both global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and natural weather variation.
“The ice is really quite stable until 2025, and then boom! It just goes,” said Marika Holland, a researcher with the National Center for Atmospheric Science in Boulder.
Her group’s work, which relies on computer models of Earth’s climate, is published in today’s issue of Geophysical Research Letters. It was the subject of much discussion at a news conference during the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco on Monday.
Scientists there outlined the likely consequences of an ice- free Arctic Ocean:
Changes to storm tracks worldwide.
Less wintertime precipitation here – which would harm Colorado’s ski areas and winter-wheat crops.
Damage to the ocean-bottom ecosystems that sustain clams, crabs and walruses in northern oceans, and an expansion of good habitat for cod and salmon.
An eventual opening of northern shipping routes, with a resultant increase in pollution in delicate Arctic ecosystems.
