DIRE predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may in fact be too conservative, according to new Arctic sea ice data.
A U.S. study on northern sea ice found that not only did 2006 have the second-lowest amount of ice on record, but also that the ice is retreating faster than the panel's climate models have predicted.
"The model forecast may be underestimating what we could expect in the future years," Walt Meier, a climatologist with the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colo., said Wednesday.
Meier's group tracks the annual maximum extent of the Arctic sea ice by the end of the northern winter, which is defined as March 31.
This year, 14.7 million square kilometres of Arctic ocean around the globe was covered by at least 15 per cent ice. That's only a little more than last year's 14.5 million square kilometres, which was the lowest figure ever recorded.
The average from 1979 to 2000 was 15.7 million square kilometres.
"It's basically continuing that trend," said Meier.
But his group also compared their measurements, which were based on observations from satellite images, with predictions generated by climate models developed by the more than 1,000 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Comparing the figures from the panel's models with actual measurements going back to the late 1970s revealed a disturbing gap, said Meier.
"What we're seeing, in the summertime particularly, is the (sea ice) that we've observed is actually declining much faster than the models have shown.
"The model forecast ... may be missing some of the processes that are causing decline, some of the feedback mechanisms that accelerate the decline of the sea ice."
-- Canadian Press
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