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Arctic’s ‘Last Ice Area’ More Vulnerable to Climate Change Than Thought

The region used to be covered year-round in thick ice and has been seen as a refuge for ice-dependent species, but last year it showed its vulnerability to the long-term effects of climate change.

(CN) — Climate change may be whittling away at what scientists call the Arctic’s “last ice area” more quickly than anticipated, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington.

The region — located in the Wandel Sea, north of Greenland and the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago — used to be covered year-round in thick, multi-year ice. It has been considered a place that could continue to harbor ice-dependent species, like polar bears and walruses, when conditions in nearby areas become inhospitable.

Last year, however, the ice showed its vulnerability to the long-term effects of climate change, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

“The computer models that try to simulate the future generally have the ice lasting quite a long time — through the 2050s or something like that — in this area in the summertime,” said Michael Steele, senior principal oceanographer at the University of Washington, in an interview. “Our results indicate that that might be optimistic and wrong — that it might be going away much faster than we thought.”

Sea ice in that region has a particular pattern of circulation through the Arctic, naturally piling up against Greenland and the northern Canadian coast, according to Axel Schweiger, a polar scientist at the University of Washington.

During the winter and spring of 2020, patches of older, thicker ice drifted into the area, causing the sea ice in the Wandel Sea to be on average slightly thicker than previous years. But there was also a lot of thin ice, and by August, satellite images showed a record low of just 50% sea ice concentration.

What caused that record low is what researchers set out to determine.

The study looked at the Wandel Sea north of Greenland, which is inside what's known as the "Last Ice Area" of the Arctic Ocean. (Credit: Schweiger et al./Communications Earth & Environment)

The study found that, between June 1 and Aug. 16, about 80% of the loss of sea ice was due to weather-related factors, such as unusual winds that broke up the ice and blew it out of the area. The other 20% was due to the thinning of sea ice caused by global warming. The thin ice melted, which “began a cycle of absorbing heat energy to melt more ice,” Schweiger said in a statement.

The findings show that, when older, thicker ice replenishes the ice cover in that region, it “doesn't seem to help as much as you might expect,” Schweiger added.

How the last ice-covered regions will fare matters for polar bears that use the ice to hunt for seals that use the ice for building dens for their young, and for walruses that use the ice as a platform for foraging.

"This area has long been expected to be the primary refuge for ice-dependent species because it is one of the last places where we expect summer sea ice to survive in the Arctic," Kristin Laidre, principal scientist at the University of Washington, said in a statement.

Marine mammals in the region may also be at risk, but little is known about them.

“We have almost no historical or present-day data, and the reality is that there are a lot more questions than answers about the future of these populations,” Laidre added.

Additionally, “the best research indicates that the warming of the Arctic is leading to warm and cold spells [in other parts of the world] that last longer,” Steele said.

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Categories / Environment, Science

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