Authors 1

Author Name

Crawford, Alex

Type of Name

Personal

Email

alex.crawford@umanitoba.ca

Affiliation

Centre for Earth Observation Science - University of Manitoba

ORCID ID

0000-0003-1561-290X

ORCID

http://orcid.org/

Authors 2

Author Name

Stroeve, Julienne

Type of Name

Personal

Email

juliene.stroeve@umanitoba.ca

Affiliation

Centre for Earth Observation Science - University of Manitoba

ORCID ID

0000-0001-7316-8320

ORCID

http://orcid.org/

Authors 3

Author Name

Smith, Abigail

Type of Name

Personal

Email

Affiliation

ORCID ID

Authors 4

Author Name

Jahn, Alexandra

Type of Name

Personal

Email

Affiliation

ORCID ID

Awards 1

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Related Resources 1

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Online Resource

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Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100

Description

The shrinking of Arctic-wide September sea ice extent is often cited as an indicator of modern climate change; however, the timing of seasonal sea ice retreat/advance and the length of the open-water period are often more relevant to stakeholders working at regional and local scales. Here we highlight changes in regional open-water periods at multiple warming thresholds. We show that, in the latest generation of models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), the open-water period lengthens by 63 days on average with 2 °C of global warming above the 1850-1900 average, and by over 90 days in several Arctic seas. Nearly the entire Arctic, including the Transpolar Sea Route, has at least 3 months of open water per year with 3.5 °C warming, and at least 6 months with 5 °C warming. Model bias compared to satellite data suggests that even such dramatic projections may be conservative. In several of the Arctic ocean basins, the period of open water without sea-ice cover will lengthen by more than 90 days under 2 oC of global warming, suggest analyses of the latest (CMIP6) climate model simulations.

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PDF

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documents