CU-Boulder researchers forecast 3-in-5 chance of record low Arctic sea ice in 2008

Warming temperatures, preponderance of young, thin ice drives prediction

CU-Boulder researchers are forecasting a 59 percent chance of a record low minimum extent of Arctic sea ice in 2008. Click here for more information.

New University of Colorado at Boulder calculations indicate the record low minimum extent of sea ice across the Arctic last September has a three-in-five chance of being shattered again in 2008 because of continued warming temperatures and a preponderance of younger, thinner ice.

The forecast by researchers at CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research is based on satellite data and temperature records and indicates there is a 59 percent chance the annual minimum sea ice record will be broken this fall for the third time in five years. Arctic sea ice declined by roughly 10 percent in the past decade, culminating in a record 2007 minimum ice cover of 1.59 million square miles. That broke the 2005 record by 460,000 miles -- an area the size of Texas and California combined.

"The current Arctic ice cover is thinner and younger than at any previous time in our recorded history, and this sets the stage for rapid melt and a new record low," said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot, who leads CCAR's Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering sciences department. Overall, 63 percent of the Arctic ice cover is younger than average, and only 2 percent is older than average, according to Drobot.

Changes in Arctic sea ice -- defined as the area of an ocean covered by at least 15 percent ice -- is "one of the more compelling and obvious signs of climate change," said Drobot. Continued Arctic sea ice declines likely will have negative effects on various types of wildlife, including polar bears, walruses and seals, he said.

For humans, larger ice-free zones in the Arctic region for longer periods offer potential for cheaper and faster merchant shipping between North America and Europe, he said. The declining ice may well open up the Northwest Passage, for example, which runs through the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea and through the Canadian Archipelago to the Atlantic Ocean.