CO2 emissions will melt Arctic this century: report
The Arctic ice cover will completely disappear in summer by the end of this century unless carbon dioxide emissions are significantly reduced, according to a scientific study to be released next week.
"The big melt has begun," Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate change campaign for the environmental organisation Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), said.
The WWF has published excerpts of the upcoming Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report.
The report says that the Arctic ice melt will cause sea levels to rise and could lead to the extinction of some species, such as polar bears.
Commissioned by the Arctic Council and compiled by more than 250 scientists, the report concludes that "climate change is happening in the Arctic and that it will get worse unless emissions of carbon dioxide are cut".
"Industrial countries are carrying out an uncontrolled experiment to study the effects of climate change and the Arctic is their first guinea pig," Ms Morgan said.
"This is unethical and wrong. They must cut emissions of carbon dioxide now."
The report presents several potential scenarios, which would occur if the Arctic ice were to disappear in summer by the end of the 21st century.
It says sea levels could rise by one metre, noting that there are currently 17 million people living less than one metre above sea level in Bangladesh.
It says places like Florida and Louisiana in the United States, and the Asian cities of Bangkok, Calcutta, Dhaka and Manila are also at risk.
However, on the positive side, rising sea levels would create a "northern passage" for shipping between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and would open up new areas for fishing, mining and oil and gas exploration.
The melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which is expected to take hundreds of years, could ultimately lead to a seven metre rise in sea levels.
Several fish and mammal species could also succumb to climate change.
The ACIA report is to be published in its entirety on November 8.
The WWF welcomes the report, but stresses the "hypocrisy" of the eight members of the Arctic Council which sponsored it, noting that they emit more than 30 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
The members are the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway.