Anchor: Research by a Korean scientific institute has revealed that the Arctic’s summer sea ice may disappear even if the goals of the Paris Agreement are met.
Albert Kim has this report. 

Report: According to the Institute for Basic Science(IBS), a South Korean government funded research institute, the Arctic Ocean’s sheet of summertime ice may very well melt away even if countries stick to the global warming limits of the Paris Agreement.

The institute said in a press release Tuesday that scientists from South Korea, the United States and Australia concluded a two degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels would pose a 28 percent risk of the summer ice in the Arctic completely melting. 

The research team also found that there is at least a six percent chance the ice will disappear even with a one-point-five degree Celsius rise in temperature.

To reach their conclusions, the team used new statistical models that take into account the world’s climate diversity. Their findings were published this week in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

In an exclusive interview with KBS World Radio, Dr. Roman Olson, a researcher at the IBS center for climate physics in Busan and one of the team's lead experts, explained why their new models offer better predictions than existing ones. 

[Sound bite: Dr. Roman Olson (English)]  
"We have developed an entirely new statistical framework that deals with models which are dependent. Previous climate projections that used such models were essentially not based on a robust probability theory. In addition, our projections consider how well each climate model captures present-day conditions of sea ice near the Arctic Ocean." 

Dr. Olson also warned that the consequences of the Arctic ice melting could be widespread. 

[Sound bite: Dr. Roman Olson (English)]  
"What we do believe is that such an event is going to be felt not just in the Arctic but across a much larger area. Arctic ice loss is expected to impact the Arctic ecosystems, the indigenous populations but in addition, previous studies have linked shrinking Arctic ice with changes in the storm tracks over the Atlantic for example with anomalous weather patterns over broad regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Also some people are looking at whether the melting ice is related to the cold winter outbursts over the Korean Peninsula."

The long-term goal of the Paris Agreement, which was signed by 195 countries in 2016, is to keep average global temperature increases well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, limiting the increase to one-point-five degree Celsius.
Albert Kim, KBS World Radio News.