Blast off into the future: 10 years to a sea ice-free Arctic

Hey, what’s up, friends? I have some ice-cold news for you: if we keep spewing greenhouse gases into the air at this crazy rate, the Arctic sea ice is going to be completely gone within the next decade. Yes, really! Imagine an Arctic with no ice, as if its ice cap had been removed, but don’t worry, if we can reduce emissions, we can postpone this disaster until the 2050s. Of course, that’s a decade earlier than climate change scientists were saying.

Some super crack researchers at Pohang University of Science and Science in South Korea, along with some colleagues from Canada and Germany, have done a mind-blowing study on this topic. They got into the global warming thing and found out that the Earth is warming at an amazing rate and that, guess what, is making the Arctic sea ice melt like ice cream in the sun. To calculate when the Arctic sea ice is going to disappear, these geniuses analyzed a bunch of data from 1979 to 2019. Imagine, almost 41 years! They compared all the model simulations with satellite observations and came to a conclusion: the main culprit for this disaster is humanity! Yes, our greenhouse gas emissions are killing off sea ice, meanwhile, aerosols, solar energy and volcanoes are like minor extras in this movie.

Oh, but there’s more, the climate models that were used before to predict this were nowhere near true. The scientists adjusted them and, surprise! The situation is worse than we thought! Sea ice is going to disappear in the next 2050s, even if we manage to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I mean, “carbon neutral” isn’t going to save us from this, so what does it all mean? Well, the ice-free Arctic is going to have a gigantic impact, and not just on the North Pole! It’s going to affect everybody. We’re going to have extreme weather events all over the place, like the weather suddenly went crazy; Cold waves, heat waves and torrential rains are going to be the order of the day. Also, the Siberian permafrost, that frozen ground in Siberia, is also going to melt, and that’s going to make global warming worse. Can you imagine? It sounds like a disaster movie, but it’s reality!

Professor Seung-Ki Min, who led this very interesting study, warns us to be vigilant. No matter what policies we adopt, the Arctic sea ice may disappear, but all is not lost, huh? It also tells us that we have to assess all the effects of climate change and look for ways to adapt while reducing carbon emissions. So, friends, it’s time to become aware and do something for our planet. We don’t want an Arctic without ice, do we? Let’s stop global warming before it’s too late! Remember guys and gals, take care of the planet like it’s your favorite game, because there is no reset button. Let’s keep playing to beat climate change!