By when will summer Arctic Sea ice coverage drop to zero?

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By when will summer Arctic Sea ice coverage drop to zero?

By when will summer Arctic Sea ice coverage drop to zero?

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kruijs in Science » Environment
Currently Open, suspends 07/01/2016 11:30 (in 07/01/2016 11:30)

Summer 2014, or earlier

Summer 2015

Summer 2016, or later or never

Background

Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, said the ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time. "It is really showing the fall-off in ice volume is so fast that it is going to bring us to zero very quickly. 2015 is a very serious prediction and I think I am pretty much persuaded that that's when it will happen."

The mass of ice between northern Russia, Canada and Greenland waxes and wanes with the seasons, currently reaching a minimum size of about four million square kilometres.

Most models, including the latest estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), track the decline in the area covered by ice in recent years to predict the rate at which it will deteriorate. But citing research compiled by Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, a researcher from the American Naval Postgraduate School, last year Prof Wadhams said such predictions failed to spot how quickly climate change is causing the ice to thin.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/8877491/Arctic-sea-ice-to-melt-by-2015.html

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User comments

11/17/2012 18:20

Josef Biesenberger

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/sea_ice_only.jpg

(1)

09/18/2012 22:27

Conspiracy2Riot

We're doomed, I tell you.

09/07/2012 21:32

Josef Biesenberger

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

08/14/2012 21:02

kruijs

Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth's polar caps.

This rate of loss is 50% higher than most scenarios outlined by polar scientists and suggests that global warming, triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions, is beginning to have a major impact on the region. In a few years the Arctic ocean could be free of ice in summer, triggering a rush to exploit its fish stocks, oil, minerals and sea routes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/11/arctic-sea-ice-vanishing

05/13/2012 13:58

Josef Biesenberger

http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic

02/19/2012 10:04

Josef Biesenberger

View Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents from 1979 through present for months March and September (animated data time series): http://nsidc.org/data/google_earth/seaice/NSIDC_SeaIceExtent.kmz
Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

02/19/2012 09:57

Josef Biesenberger

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/05/19/208088/arctic-sea-ice-volume-death-spiral/?mobile=nc

12/08/2011 18:56

Josef Biesenberger

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/our-changing-arctic-is-change-permanent.html

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