VANISHING ARCTIC SEA ICE SPEEDS UP GLOBAL WARMING.
Arctic Sea Ice Loss
Research shows that Arctic sea ice loss is directly related to global CO2 emissions; Stroeve & Notz, 2018.
Explore what this means in this interactive app.
How do emitters near you affect Arctic sea ice? Click the image above to find out – don’t forget to share your results!
THE RISK
ARCTIC SEA-ICE EXTENT IS SHRINKING FAST. Arctic sea ice is an indicator of climate stability. Today, there is about 40% less sea ice coverage at the end of the melt season than existed in the 1980s. The ice area shrank by almost half the size of the entire European Union. What was left was smaller than at any time in at least 1,000 years.
HOW HAS ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT CHANGED OVER TIME? Our new Sea Ice Stripes show you how the ice has changed over time.
SEE THE DATASEA ICE LOSS WORSENS WARMING. White ice cover reflects much of the sun’s energy back out to space. But as ice disappears, the dark ocean is exposed, absorbs more of the sun’s energy, and warms, helping to melt more snow and ice. Estimates suggest that the loss of Arctic sea ice together with reductions in snow cover over the boreal land areas will exacerbate global warming by 25 - 40% (Duan, Cao, and Caldeira, 2019, Pistone, Eisenman, and Ramanathan, 2014).
SEE THE DATAIncreased Global Temperature means less Arctic sea ice This new visualisations hows how when the global temperature is higher there is less sea ice in the Arctic.
SEE THE DATAIPCC FINDINGS
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the world’s most authoritative source on climate change. It reviews all published literature to provide comprehensive and objective scientific information.
VANISHING SEA ICE MEANS AN UNRECOGNISABLE WORLD
- The area of Arctic seas covered by late-summer sea ice is shrinking by 10.5 to 15.1% every decade. Between 1979 and 2018, the extent of the sea ice dwindled for every month of the year.
- Arctic sea ice is getting younger and less stable. In the 40 years between 1979 and 2018, the proportion of Arctic sea ice at least five years old shrank from almost a third to just two percent.
- When global warming reaches between 1.5 and 2°C, scientists expect the Arctic to be practically sea ice-free during September in some years. If temperatures climb further, September sea ice will be mostly a thing of the past.
DIMINISHING SEA-ICE EXTENT
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Arctic Sea Ice STRIPES
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DESTABILISED SEA ICE
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Increased Global Temperature means Less Arctic sea ice
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