Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100
Open Access
- 3 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Communications Earth & Environment
- Vol. 2 (1), 1-10
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00183-x
Abstract
The shrinking of Arctic-wide September sea ice extent is often cited as an indicator of modern climate change; however, the timing of seasonal sea ice retreat/advance and the length of the open-water period are often more relevant to stakeholders working at regional and local scales. Here we highlight changes in regional open-water periods at multiple warming thresholds. We show that, in the latest generation of models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), the open-water period lengthens by 63 days on average with 2 °C of global warming above the 1850-1900 average, and by over 90 days in several Arctic seas. Nearly the entire Arctic, including the Transpolar Sea Route, has at least 3 months of open water per year with 3.5 °C warming, and at least 6 months with 5 °C warming. Model bias compared to satellite data suggests that even such dramatic projections may be conservative.Keywords
This publication has 57 references indexed in Scilit:
- Regions of rapid sea ice change: An inter‐hemispheric seasonal comparisonGeophysical Research Letters, 2012
- Sea ice loss enhances wave action at the Arctic coastGeophysical Research Letters, 2011
- The Arctic’s rapidly shrinking sea ice cover: a research synthesisClimatic Change, 2011
- Are phytoplankton blooms occurring earlier in the Arctic?Global Change Biology, 2010
- A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years?Geophysical Research Letters, 2009
- Travelling and hunting in a changing Arctic: assessing Inuit vulnerability to sea ice change in Igloolik, NunavutClimatic Change, 2008
- Increasing solar heating of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas, 1979–2005: Attribution and role in the ice‐albedo feedbackGeophysical Research Letters, 2007
- Variation in sea ice cover on the east coast of Canada from 1969 to 2002: climate variability and implications for harp and hooded sealsClimate Research, 2005
- An enhancement of the NASA Team sea ice algorithmIEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2000
- Passive microwave algorithms for sea ice concentration: A comparison of two techniquesRemote Sensing of Environment, 1997