MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. The ice cover area in the Arctic Ocean will continue shrinking in the long term, despite the current cold winter, Director of the Earth Touches Everyone project Vladimir Chuprov told TASS.
Earlier reports say the sea ice thickness at Cape Chelyuskin on the Taimyr Peninsula is more than 135 centimeters - bigger than the thickness reported in 2022.
"The current relatively severe winter may change the ice maximum towards its increase against year 2025. However, here it is important to evaluate the long-term dynamics. Members of the intergovernmental group on climate change, who develop special UN reports on climate change, predict that by 2050 the Arctic Ocean will probably become practically free of sea ice for the first time. In the meantime, the trends of recent decades are such that the ice minimum and ice maximum are decreasing both in terms of ice area and volume," the expert said.
This means, he continued, that the ice cover at the ice minimum will remain, though will be less than a million square kilometers, while the current ice minima are about 3.5-4.5 million square kilometers. At the same time, 2025 was the year where the ice maximum was at a record low in the history of almost 50 years of observations, he added.
"It is important to understand, this absolutely does not mean that by the middle of this century the Arctic Ocean will remain ice-free throughout the year. The ice cover will be recovering after each minimum, with a delay and not with this intensity, but anyway it will be posing problems for navigation. The main reason for the ice melting is the increase in near-surface air temperature. Therefore, the ice cover's shrinking is an unhealthy symptom that demonstrates that the planet's climate is rapidly changing for the worse for the existing ecosystem and infrastructures," he said.
The ice cover in the Arctic, in its marine part, is estimated by two values - by the area of distribution and by the volume of sea ice. Scientists assess the ice cover dynamics by the so-called "ice minimum" and "ice maximum" rates. Timing for the first one is normally around mid-September, and for the other one is usually March.