American scientists studying sea ice in the Arctic argue that by 2050, in the summer, the Arctic Ocean will be able to swim freely without fear of colliding with ice. According to the most pessimistic forecasts, the Arctic ice will melt in the next decade.
The staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) note that the rapid melting of the Arctic ice is the most reliable indicator of global climate change. According to them, this leads to shifts in ecosystems, in particular, to significant changes in weather conditions throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
In order to understand how humanity can adapt to these global changes, according to the officials of the department, it is necessary to consider different scenarios for the development of events, since it is impossible to accurately predict the scenario of these changes. American scientists have proposed three similar scenarios.
According to the first scenario, by 2020, almost all Arctic ice will melt (with the exception of some glaciers in the northern regions of the Canadian archipelago and Greenland).
According to the second scenario, this process will take ten years more, that is, the Arctic in the usual sense will disappear by 2030. In this case, scientists are based on the fact that large losses of Arctic ice in the past were observed not as a continuous phenomenon in time, but manifested themselves cyclically with an interval of five to seven years.
The most optimistic scenario sets aside about 40-50 more years for the process of complete melting of the Arctic ice. This is due to the fact that it is after 2040 that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere will reach its peak, which will lead to an unprecedented heating of the Arctic in particular. However, scientists remind, due to the reluctance of mankind to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions, this process may accelerate significantly in the coming decades.