Aarhus College researchers discover that 10,000 years in the past the Arctic was hotter and ice-free in the summertime! – Are you accomplished with that?
From the NoTricksZone
By P. Gosselin
Move goal post
Sediment samples show that 10,000 years ago the Arctic was warmer and ice-free in the summer. In addition, the researchers say that “it is uncertain” whether Arctic sea ice will disappear in the summer before 2063.
Image: NASA (public domain)
Aarhus University conducted a study confirming that sea ice disappeared from the Arctic during the summer months of the early Holocene – 10,000 years ago.
Researchers from Aarhus University, in collaboration with Stockholm University and the United States Geological Survey, analyzed samples from the previously inaccessible region north of Greenland. The sediment samples were collected from the seabed in the Lincoln Sea. They showed that the sea ice in this region melted in the summer months about 10,000 years ago.
The research team concluded that summer sea ice melted at a time when temperatures were warmer than today.
“Climate models indicate that summer sea ice in this region will melt in the coming decades, but it is uncertain whether this will happen in 20, 30, 40 years or longer.” This project has shown that we can scenario are very close and that temperatures only need to increase slightly before the ice melts,” says Christof Pearce, assistant professor at the Department of Geosciences at Aarhus University.
Summer temperatures higher than today
Researchers used data from the early Holocene to predict when sea ice will melt today. During this period, summer temperatures in the Arctic were higher than today. Although caused by natural climate variability as opposed to man-made warming, it is nonetheless a natural laboratory for studying the fate of this region in the immediate future.
In Aarhus, the marine samples were analyzed in collaboration with Associate Professor Marianne Glasius and Academic Technical Assistant Mads Mørk Jensen from the Chemistry Department. Among other things, they examined molecules of certain algae that only form with sea ice. This allows the researchers to determine when there was summer sea ice in the area.
If the sea ice in the Lincoln Sea begins to melt in the summer months, this can have serious consequences for the climate. Where white ice reflects the sun’s rays, a dark sea absorbs more than ten times as much solar energy.
“Sea ice is a basis for many ecosystems. The algae we study are food for fish, fish are food for birds, etc. How will marine ecosystems be affected worldwide when sea ice disappears? We don’t know the answer yet,” says Henrieka Detlef, assistant professor at the Department of Geosciences.
According to researchers from Aarhus University, the study can be interpreted as both bad and good news for the climate. Henrieka Detlef also said that if temperatures remained stable or maybe even dropped, “sea ice would return to the area.”
Alarmist Writers
Despite the undeniable strong natural factors and cycles at play in the Arctic, some researchers have a rather alarming or even hysterical view of the future. Christof Pearce, for example, warned that greenhouse gas emissions are heating up the planet and referred to dubious model results: “The study is a wake-up call because we know it will happen.” This news does not make the situation more depressing, only more urgent. We must act now so we can change it.”
The research is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment and presented with an alarmist narrative. Indeed, the results of the study confirm that natural factors played a role in the early Holocene, and thus readers must consider that these natural factors have not disappeared. They change and still determine our climate today.
Henrieka Detlef et al., Seasonal sea ice in the last Arctic ice sheet during the early Holocene, Communications Earth & Environment (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-023-00720-w
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