Abstract
The prospect of an ice-free Arctic in our near future due to the rapid and accelerated Arctic sea ice decline has brought about the urgent need for reliable projections of the first ice-free Arctic summer year (FIASY). Together with up-to-date observations and characterizations of Arctic ice state, they are essential to business strategic planning, climate adaptation, and risk mitigation. In this study, the monthly Arctic sea ice extents from 12 global climate models are utilized to obtain projected FIASYs and their dependency on different emission scenarios, as well as to examine the nature of the ice retreat projections. The average value of model-projected FIASYs is 2054/2042, with a spread of 74/42 years for the medium/high emission scenarios, respectively. The earliest FIASY is projected to occur in year 2023, which may not be realistic, for both scenarios. The sensitivity of individual climate models to scenarios in projecting FIASYs is very model-dependent. The nature of model-projected Arctic sea ice coverage changes is shown to be primarily linear. FIASY values predicted by six commonly used statistical models that were curve-fitted with the first 30 years of climate projections (2006–2035), on other hand, show a preferred range of 2030–2040, with a distinct peak at 2034 for both scenarios, which is more comparable with those from previous studies.
Highlights
Rapid and accelerated Arctic sea ice loss has brought the possibility of a nearly ice-free Arctic summer well into our near future (e.g., [1,2,3,4])
A similar conclusion was obtained by Wang and Overland [1,2], who used a subset of coupled climate models that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phase 3 and Phase 5 (CMIP3 and CMIP5, respectively)
The selection criteria required that the model-simulated monthly sea ice extent and seasonal cycle magnitudes were within 20% of error of the observed values [2,10]. By using only these 12 climate models that simulated Arctic sea ice extent reasonably well, we aimed to reduce the uncertainty in projected future Arctic sea ice changes and improve the quality of our analysis
Summary
Rapid and accelerated Arctic sea ice loss has brought the possibility of a nearly ice-free Arctic summer well into our near future (e.g., [1,2,3,4]). The rapid changes in sea ice pose challenges to the Arctic ecosystem, including the decline of habitat for Arctic animals such as polar bears and increases in coastal erosion that may directly impact Arctic people [5,6,7]. It provides opportunities, such as the opening up of shipping routes. An accurate projection of the first ice-free Arctic summer year (FIASY) would be beneficial to business strategic planning, climate adaptation and risk mitigation, and national security. A similar conclusion was obtained by Wang and Overland [1,2], who used a subset of coupled climate models that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phase 3 and Phase 5 (CMIP3 and CMIP5, respectively)
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