Arctic sea ice is approaching the limit of natural variability

Arctic is a very enigmatical region, which has a lot of secrets, especially in its past. The research team from the Niels Bohr Institute Centre for Ice and Climate, at the University of Copenhagen, decided to discover this North region.

The Danish scientists used a new chemical technique, scientists have to document the expansion and decline of Arctic sea ice over the past 125,000 years.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to reconstruct Arctic sea ice in the past from a Greenland ice core,” 

says Paul Vallelonga, associate professor and the co-author of the publication, published in the journal Scientific Reports.

While sea ice is currently declining rapidly and has reached its minimum in the early 2000s, it still has some way to go before it exceeds the minima that last seen 8,000 years ago. The results redefine the natural limit of sea ice decline in the Arctic over the last 10,000 years, says Vallelonga:

“It’s good news that we’re still within the Arctic’s “natural threshold” if you like. But over the last 40 years we’ve seen sea ice changing rapidly, and we’re fast approaching this minimum level”.