Recent decades have witnessed steady shrinking of arctic sea ice, which in effect has damaged the livelihoods of indigenous people and also of wildlife like polar bears. It has also resulted in opening the region to more shipping and oil and gas exploration.
2015 Paris Agreement
The 2015 Paris Agreement saw governments set a goal of limiting the rise in average world temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, with an aspiration of just 1.5 degree Celsius.
"The 2 degrees Celsius target may be insufficient to prevent an ice-free Arctic," James Screen and Daniel Williamson of Exeter University in Britain wrote in the journal after a statistical review of ice projections, according to Reuters.
What would be the effect of a 2 degrees Celsius rise?
According to the researchers, a 2 degree Celsius. rise would still mean a 39 per cent risk that ice will disappear in the Arctic Ocean in summers. However, ice was virtually certain to survive, with just a 1.5 degree Celsius of warming.
Scientist's estimation
They further said that according to their estimate, there was a 73 per cent probability that the ice would disappear in summer unless governments make deeper cuts in emissions than their existing plans. They anticipated that the temperatures will rise 3 degree Celsius on current trends.
In March 2017, the extent of Arctic sea ice is rivaling 2016 and 2015 as the smallest for the time of year since satellite records began in the late 1970s.
The ice reaches a winter maximum in March and a summer minimum in September.
"In less than 40 years, we have almost halved the summer sea ice cover," said Tor Eldevik a professor at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen in Norway, who was not involved in the study.
Eldevik predicted that sea ice would vanish in the Arctic Ocean in about another 40 years, on current trends.
Definition of an ice-free Arctic Ocean
According to the scientists, an ice-free Arctic Ocean is the one with less than 1 million square kilometers of ice because they say some sea ice will linger in bays, such as off northern Greenland, even after the ocean is ice-free.
The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday, March 6.
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