Arctic summers without sea ice could arrive sooner than expected

A new study suggests that the Arctic Ocean could have summers with almost entirely open water sooner than expected, with regular years without summer Arctic sea ice occurring in the 2050s, even in a low-emissions scenario. The worst-case scenario could see the Arctic having Septembers with no ice as soon as the 2030s, a decade earlier than previous research indicated. The impacts will be far-reaching, threatening communities, harming ecosystems, and exacerbating global warming. The authors of the study compared years of satellite observations of Arctic ice to 10 existing climate models and ran the updated models under four potential scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions.