Every time you emit a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), three square meters of Arctic summer sea ice disappear, contributing to the predictions that say that, by mid-century, the Arctic sea ice will vanish. And even when the UN Climate Conference agreed to reduce global warming 1.5 degrees Celsius, the Arctic will most likely disappear from Earth.

A study published in the journal Science this week reveal the shocking predictions that are based on pure observation. It was used to include climate models in research on the Arctic ice, but since it was discovered the models simulate a lower sensitivity than in observations, the study rule out the climate models.

The Arctic sea ice has melted as consequence of the climate change. Photo credit: Carbonbrief.org
The Arctic sea ice has melted as consequence of the climate change. Photo credit: Carbonbrief.org

Currently, the Arctic is half of its size. In the last 40 years, the Arctic sea ice has melted as consequence of the ongoing climate change that some politics in America continue to deny. Greenhouse emissions are responsible for the melting of the Arctic summer sea ice and climate models predicted the disappearance of the Arctic by 2050.

The study authors Dirk Notz, leader of a Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Julienne Stroeve from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center show in their paper the link between carbon-dioxide emissions and the area of Arctic summer sea ice that is being affected. They found that they are linearly related and discovered that “for each ton of carbon dioxide that a person emits anywhere on the planet, three square meters of Arctic summer sea ice is lost.”

If global warming is not below 1.5 ºC fails, the Arctic will disappear

Early this month the United Nations Environment Programme has urged the world to reduced its greenhouse emissions to get to a global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius next year. 

The bad news is that even if the world manages to limit global warming to two degree Celsius, the efforts will not be enough to stop the Arctic sea ice to disappear from Earth. Only in September, 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide have been emitted, and if this continues, global warming will end the Arctic ice.

The only way to save the Arctic is if international efforts actually reduced their emissions to keep global warming below 1.5 degree Celsius, as agreed in Paris in November. The rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is the primary indicator of global warming, and humans are the responsible for it and the Arctic’s fate.  

Source: Science Magazine