The North Pole runs out of ice faster than expected: it may melt completely in two years

The Arctic could experience its first summer without sea ice in 2027, according to recent research published in the journal Nature Communications. The study, led by climatologists Alexandra Jahn and Celine Heuzéwarns that the pace of melting in the northernmost ocean is accelerating due to climate change and extreme weather events.

Using more than 300 computer simulations, the international team of scientists concluded that even if greenhouse gas emissions do not increase, current conditions could trigger a completely ice-free summer nine to twenty years after 2023. However, Researchers have identified a series of extreme weather events that could melt more than two million square kilometers of sea ice in a short period: an unusually warm autumn first weakens the sea ice, followed by a warm winter and spring in the Arctic that They prevent the formation of sea ice.

These consecutive conditions, repeated for at least three years, would be enough to worsen the situation, since when there are less than one million square kilometers of ice, scientists consider the Arctic to be ice-free.

“The first day without ice in the Arctic will not change things radically, but it will demonstrate that we have altered one of the defining characteristics of the Arctic’s natural environment due to greenhouse gas emissions,” says Alexandra Jahn in a statement.

Mitigation still possible

In September 2023, minimum ice coverage in the Arctic reached 4.28 million square kilometers, one of the lowest recorded since 1978, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. In comparison, the average between 1979 and 1992 was 6.85 million square kilometers, evidencing the unprecedented rate of ice loss, estimated at more than 12% per decade.

Despite the gloomy prognosis, the researchers emphasize that there is still room to delay this phenomenon through a drastic reduction in emissions. “Any reduction in emissions would help preserve sea ice,” Jahn said. In previous studies by the same team they already tried to predict when this ocean will be completely free of ice for a full month, concluding that this would occur in the 2030s.