Even with dramatic shifts in carbon emissions, summer sea ice in the Arctic is doomed, a new analysis has found.

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Our observationally-constrained projections based on attribution results also suggest that we may experience an unprecedented ice-free Arctic climate in the next decade or two, irrespective of emission scenarios,” the study authors wrote. “This would affect human society and the ecosystem both within and outside the Arctic, through changing Arctic marine activities as well as further accelerating the Arctic warming and thereby altering Arctic carbon cycling.”

According to NASA, Arctic sea ice in the summer is shrinking 12.6% per decade from global warming compared to average summer sea ice extent in 1981 to 2010.

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