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Ice-free Arctic at 1.5 °C?

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 230–231 (2017)Cite this article

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To the Editor

The Paris Agreement1 to combat climate change includes an aspirational goal to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level, substantially more ambitious than the previous target of 2 °C. One of the most visible and iconic aspects of recent climate change is the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice2, which is having profound implications for the environment, ecosystems, and human inhabitants of this region and beyond3.

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Figure 1: Predicting the likelihood of an ice-free Arctic for the 1.5 °C and 2 °C targets.

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the climate modelling groups for producing and making available their model output and to the following data providers: National Snow and Ice Data Center (observed sea-ice extent) and Earth System Grid (CMIP5 multi-model ensemble).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK

    James A. Screen & Daniel Williamson

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  1. James A. Screen
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  2. Daniel Williamson
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Correspondence to James A. Screen.

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Screen, J., Williamson, D. Ice-free Arctic at 1.5 °C?. Nature Clim Change 7, 230–231 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3248

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