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Arctic Sea Ice in the Light of Current and Past Climate Changes

  • SEA, RIVER AND LAKE ICE
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Abstract

Space observations (1979–2020) have shown that, over the past 40 years, years with a decrease in the area of summer ice and their thickness prevailed. Over 10 years, negative trends of anomalies in the area and thickness of the ice are –13 and –15%, respectively. A rapid reduction in the area of old ice (>4-year-old) is also noted, because in 1985 it was estimated at 2.7 million km2, while in March 2010 it was 0.34 million km2. The paper analyses paleo sea ice extent during the Holocene (the last 12 000 years) based on empirical IP25 biomarkers (a sea ice proxy with 25 carbon atoms synthesized by the specific Arctic sea ice diatoms Hasleaspp, which have been proven to be a suitable proxy for paleo-sea ice reconstructions) obtained from deep-sea cores from the North Atlantic. The data showed that, during the warm periods of the Early and Middle Holocene, the area of summer sea ice was reduced to a minimum. This confirms the conclusion made earlier in (Kinnard et al., 2011) that the current trend of reducing the area and thickness of ice is unprecedented over the past 1500 years. There is no complete analogue of the climate in the past corresponding to the current level of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The period with CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere similar to the current level was the warm part of the Middle Pliocene between 3 and 4 million years ago with level of the CO2 concentration 450–500 ppm against approximately 420 ppm at present. Paleo-climate reconstructions for this period estimate the global temperature to be 3.0–3.5 ± 0.5°C higher than at the end of the 19th century. Summer air temperatures in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere exceeded the current ones by 8–10°C, and the sea ice in the Arctic shelf seas was completely absent in the summer. Empirical data and model simulations have shown that presently the main driver of the reduction of the Arctic sea ice area is the increase in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. At the present time, old sea ice tends to be replaced by seasonal ice, demonstrating a natural shift from the predominance of permanent ice to an ice-free Arctic. In the case of a continuous increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere despite emission control measures, one of the scenarios that happened in the past may occur again.

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Funding

This study was supported by Russian Foundation For Basic Research, grant no. 18-05-60005 “Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services in the Russian Arctic Regions in the Context of Climate Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Development.”

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  1. State Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia

    I. I. Borzenkova, A. A. Ershova, E. L. Zhiltsova & K. O. Shapovalova

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  1. I. I. Borzenkova
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Borzenkova, I.I., Ershova, A.A., Zhiltsova, E.L. et al. Arctic Sea Ice in the Light of Current and Past Climate Changes. Izv. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. 59 (Suppl 1), S35–S46 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433823130042

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