Arctic sea could be ‘ice-free’ by the 2030s, new study warns

Researchers are warning that Arctic Ocean sea ice is melting at an even faster pace than previously thought — and the region could experience its first ice-free conditions sometime before the 2030s.

According to a study published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, the Arctic sea ice cover and the ice’s thickness have “declined conspicuously” since satellite observations began in 1978.

For years, the melting of Arctic sea ice has been viewed as a measure of climate change effects.

Predictions indicate that the earliest ice-free conditions in the Arctic Ocean could potentially occur sometime in the 2020s to the 2030s and are likely to happen before the 2050s, the study found.

The sea ice in question is seasonal. It freezes each winter but melts in the summer. Each year, the amount of summertime sea ice has declined because of human-caused global warming.

The researchers said that sea ice is typically at its lowest in September. Researchers predict that by 2035 to 2067 there will be consistent ice-free September conditions.

The first ice-free summer year would happen when the Arctic has less than 386,000 square miles of ice, the Los Angeles Times noted.

Alexandra Jahn, researcher for the University of Colorado Boulder, told the outlet that at this point it’s “no longer a remote possibility,” and an ice-free Arctic Ocean will happen under all emissions scenarios.

The study’s scientists argue that there is an urgent need to better understand what the impacts of an ice-free Arctic are, including the effects on marine ecosystems, the global energy budget, wave height and coastal erosion.  

The study, published Tuesday, follows a summer of record-breaking temperatures in 2023. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed its annual report last December, which found 2023 was the sixth-warmest year ever in the Arctic, which melted sea ice at record rates.