When will the Arctic be ice-free? Scientists predict brink could be crossed within a decade
The Arctic could experience its first ice-free day in the next couple of years, scientists predict. A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder in the US finds this critical brink could be passed more than 10 years earlier than previously expected. It’s not quite as drastic as it sounds. For scientists, an ice-free Arctic doesn’t mean there would be zero ice in the water. The polar region will be considered free of ice when the ocean has less than one million square kilometres of ice. But that’s a huge depletion from where it stood just decades ago. The threshold represents less than 2...