The Arctic will be ice-free by about 2030, according to the Catlin Arctic Survey and the Worldwide Wildlife Fund (WWF). Typically, the multi-year ice cover over the Arctic Ocean is nine feet thick. Recent measurements of Arctic sea ice indicate that it is only 6 feet thick and has been formed in the past year. Due to wind and sea currents, first-year ice breaks apart easily. Once free, the block of ice then gravitates to warmer waters. Approximately 70 percent of Arctic sea ice in 2008 was single-year ice that formed over the previous winter, reports Dr. Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.
Melting permafrost (soil that remains frozen year-round) causes erosion and landslides. Coastal ground lost to erosion amounts to as much as 100 feet per year in Alaska, Siberia and Canada, and leads to damage of homes, roads, pipelines and airports. In addition, carbon in the permafrost decomposes at higher temperatures, releasing carbon dioxide and methane, a potent greenhouse gas. According to a study by Edward A.G. Schuur of the University of Florida, permafrost stores twice the carbon found in the atmosphere. If released, this carbon will equal about 50 percent of the carbon dioxide that is generated by worldwide land use.
Due to climate change, forests dry out and are subject to an increased number of fires. In 1996, one fire in Big Lake, Alaska, decimated 37,000 acres and 450 buildings, resulting in damage upwards of $80 million. At the same time, infestations by destructive insects are on the rise. An outbreak of spruce bark beetles wiped out 2.3 million acres of woodland in the Kenai Peninsula, according to the Center for International Environmental Law. Spikes in the populations of coneworm, larch sawfly and budworm have also been witnessed in the coniferous boreal forest.
Due to vanishing ice, wildlife populations must alter feeding habits or risk death. The Arctic Species Trend Index (2010) reports a 26 percent decline from 1970 to 2004 in vertebrates across the northern polar region. While ice retreat translates into smaller areas for seals and walruses to search for food, Arctic caribou and reindeer are falling through thin ice. Because of shifting patterns in food supply, young walruses are not surviving.
In a recent study by the Arctic monitoring and assessment program (Amap), black carbon (also known as soot) may be as serious a contributor to warming as carbon dioxide. Soot results from the burning of crops or diesel. It not only forms a haze that absorbs the sun, but also darkens the snow underneath.