Working Paper: NBER ID: w30732
Authors: Francis X. Diebold; Glenn D. Rudebusch; Maximilian Göbel; Philippe Goulet-Coulombe; Boyuan Zhang
Abstract: Rapidly diminishing Arctic summer sea ice is a strong signal of the pace of global climate change. We provide point, interval, and density forecasts for four measures of Arctic sea ice: area, extent, thickness, and volume. Importantly, we enforce the joint constraint that these measures must simultaneously arrive at an ice-free Arctic. We apply this constrained joint forecast procedure to models relating sea ice to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and models relating sea ice directly to time. The resulting "carbon-trend" and "time-trend" projections are mutually consistent and predict a nearly ice-free summer Arctic Ocean by the mid-2030s with an 80% probability. Moreover, the carbon-trend projections show that global adoption of a lower carbon path would likely delay the arrival of a seasonally ice-free Arctic by only a few years.
Keywords: Arctic Sea Ice; Climate Change; Forecasting; Atmospheric CO2
JEL Codes: C51; Q54
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| atmospheric CO2 concentration (Q54) | sea ice area (Q22) |
| atmospheric CO2 concentration (Q54) | sea ice extent (Q54) |
| atmospheric CO2 concentration (Q54) | sea ice thickness (Y10) |
| atmospheric CO2 concentration (Q54) | sea ice volume (Y10) |
| global adoption of lower carbon paths (Q42) | delay of ice-free Arctic (F64) |