Columbia University has announced that the first open water summer in the Arctic could be around 2050. This means that the ice sheet could shrink significantly in the near future, potentially affecting the climate and ecosystem in this region.
In 1985, scientists discovered an emerging hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. This hole interfered with UV protection, which led to a worsening climate. Gazeta.ru.
As a result, the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 to protect the ozone layer. Almost every country in the world has joined the protocol and it continues to be an important agreement for the preservation of human health and the environment.
Researcher Lorenzo Polvani and his team analyzed the measures taken and concluded that they were able to slow down the onset of the “Arctic ice-free summer” by about 15 years.
The authors report that the first ice-free Arctic summer, when the Arctic Ocean is almost completely free of sea ice, will be a significant milestone in the process of climate change. They add that their findings were unexpected.
Previous climate projections indicated that the first ice-free Arctic summer would occur around 2035. However, updated models show that this will not happen until 2050, and this is mainly due to the introduction of the Montreal Protocol.
The calculations show that if the Montreal Protocol had not been adopted, the global average surface temperature would have been about 0.5 degrees warmer and the Arctic ice would have been 1 degree warmer by 2050.
This is due to the fact that ozone-depleting substances, such as freon and carbon tetrachloride, are also greenhouse gases.
As countries significantly reduced their emissions of ozone-depleting substances, the rate of global warming also slowed down. According to the authors, this indicates that climate policy can have an effect within a single generation.
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