Living in Bomb Time — 33

The Earth’s Climate System — A Short Users Guide. Part 03.

When you imagine the “Arctic Ice Cap”, I’ll bet you thought it would be “bigger”. Summer Sea Ice 2019.

Do you remember when the “Northwest Passage” opened for the FIRST time in human history?

You should, it was 2007.

Arctic melt opens Northwest passage — Record low for sea-ice retreat.

Published 19 September 2007 | Nature 449, 267 (2007) | doi:10.1038/449267b

The most direct shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, connecting Asia and Europe, is fully navigable for the first time since records began, data show. Warming has led to a record retreat of Arctic sea ice, which covers about 16 million square kilometers during March each year and melts to a minimum sometime in September or October.

In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted “that if current trends continue, a summer without sea ice will occur in the next 40 to 100 years”.

Sea ice area at the end of the Arctic summer in 1979, at left, versus 2019.

Or, it could happen “sooner”.

Arctic summer sea ice could disappear as early as 2035 – (pub. 2020)