Two new studies have warned that Arctic ice is melting faster than expected

The climate crisis is already a global problem, and despite efforts to reverse some doomsday trends, some regions appear not to improve their prospects.

This Tuesday, two Swedish studies warned that the the arctic ocean is warming faster than predicted by climate models from United Nations experts.

The ace relatively warm deep arctic currents they are hotter now and they are closer to the surface than experts thought, so when they come into direct contact with pack ice (or blocks of ocean ice), the fusion of these layers is accelerated.

Snowmelt is no longer confined to the summer season, but evidence of this process has been recorded even in winter, directly affecting wildlife and even altering water levels and species migration rates.

“It’s not good news at all”commented it Celine Heuzeclimatologist at the University of Gothenburg and director of one of the studies published a few hours ago in the Journal of Climate.

For the estimates, the scientists relied on their observations and compared them with the calculations of 14 models taken into account by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), responsible for preparing the main reports of the United Nations regarding the weather.

As a result, they were able to determine, in turn, that the influence of the deep waters coming from the Atlantic which circulate in this zone are more important than one thought.

“The predictions shared by the IPCC are a little too optimistic. It will be much worse and it will go faster than expected”Heuzé continued, explaining that the results presented in the paper differ from their conclusions because they lack field expeditions and observations.

In this sense, he mentioned that the surface of the ice cap has decreased -on average- by one 9% in winter and one 48% in summer since 1979, when the first satellite photographs were taken. From, its thickness has been reduced by 66%.

To these new data was added the study dating from 2022 published in the scientific journal Naturein which he realized that the arctic atmosphere has warmed four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 40 years, a proportion that was double the estimates provided by IPCC models.

In the midst of this delicate environmental situation, Joe Biden gave the green light to willow projecta controversial plan to extract Oil In the state of Alaskain collaboration with the company Conoco Phillips.

The project is located within Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve and approximately 300 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. Its exploitation will allow the production of 180,000 barrels of oil per day but, in turn, will involve the release of 278 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

This scenario – which is equivalent to the circulation of 2 million cars – has been denounced as a “coal bomb” by environmental groups who have strongly opposed the project.

After learning of his endorsement, critics targeted Biden for breaking promises to cut greenhouse gases and promote clean energy and even announced they would consider suing his government to stop the project.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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