Journal Article

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

Jahn, Alexandra, Smith, Abigail, Stroeve, Julienne, Crawford, Alex

2021

Overview

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.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: Climate change / Climate models / Global warming / Ice cover / Ocean basins / Sea ice