‘Ice-free’ Arctic Ocean could be reality this decade, study says

(Gray News) - Imagine the Arctic Ocean with no ice. Scientists said it could happen — and soon.

A new study said the ocean could start seeing its first ice-free days before 2030.

“Ice-free” is defined in the study as days with less than 386,000 square miles of ice. The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world’s oceans at about 5.4 million square miles, or 1.5 times as big as the United States, Brittanica noted.

Researchers also said ice-free conditions could persist for the entire month of September as soon as 2035.

The study was published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.

“Regardless of prediction uncertainties, the transition to an ice-free Arctic signifies a regime shift from a perennial sea ice cover to a seasonal sea ice cover, or from a white summer Arctic to a blue Arctic,” the study said.

And. it could remain ice-free most of the year, from May through January, by the year 2100. That’s if humanity doesn’t cut its use of fossil fuels.

Arctic sea ice cover has declined noticeably since satellite observations began in 1978.

An Arctic Ocean free of ice is something that hasn’t occurred for at least 80,000 years and is expected to “have important impacts on the local and global climate and on ecological systems.”

The big question is what the exact consequences of these ice free days will be.

Having more water in the Arctic Ocean could help accelerate climate change in the Arctic, increase coastal erosion along the Arctic and threaten the survival of sea ice-depended species such as polar bears and seals, the study said.

Warmer ocean temperatures have already decimated the snow crab population, NOAA Fisheries said. Alaska had to cancel its harvest season the past two years, KTUU reported.

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