Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty
As the summer rolls in and another round of record-breaking temperatures are set to inundate the planet, scientists have just issued another dire warning for us all: there may no longer be an Arctic left in as little as a decade from now—at least, not as we know it. In a new study published in Nature Communications on June 6, an international team of scientists report that the Arctic may be completely sea ice-free for the rest of its summers by the 2030s—a full decade before previous projections.
Global warming caused by human activity would account for 90 percent of this disappearance. (Shocker, we know.)
Though incredibly alarming, the findings aren’t particularly that surprising. Since Arctic sea ice began being measured by satellites in 1979, summer Arctic ice has shrunk by about 13 percent every decade. In 2021, it was at its lowest extant on record.