Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100
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 highlig...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10131344/1/s43247-021-00183-x.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10131344/ |
| Summary: | 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. |
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