Sea Ice Even More Threatened Than Previously Thought
The low sea ice levels and high temperatures in Earth's latitudinal extremes in 2023 are a preview of the heated world to come, two new studies show. Research, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, referenced observed 2023 conditions against long-accepted computer modeling and found last year looked more like a world 3°C (5.4°F) warmer than preindustrial averages than the current 1.48°C (2.66°F). A separate study, published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, found Septembers in the North Atlantic could be consistently devoid of sea ice as soon as 2035, more than 10 years earlier than previous projections. “The climate of 2023 with all the disasters, you know, with all the wildfires in Canada and all the flooding events in Europe and everything, you can interpret this as, this what we will have every year. Year after year after year in the 3-degree world,” Till Kuhlbrodt, author of the BAMS study, told the AP. “You don’t want to go there.”
(BAMS: AP; NREE: The Guardian, LA Times $, Gizmodo; Climate Signals background: Sea ice decline)
To receive climate stories like this in your inbox daily click here to sign up for the Hot News Newsletter from Climate Nexus:
Related Content
