‘Ice Road Truckers’ will soon be impossible due to climate change

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

The daring exploits of drivers in the cult TV show "Ice Road Truckers" will soon be physically impossible due to climate change, warns a new study.

Millions of viewers around the world enjoy watching the reality show in which experienced truck drivers were expected to master scary challenges, such as transporting heavy supplies across frozen lakes in the remote Arctic.

But new research by an international team of scientists suggests that crossing frozen lakes with heavy trucks may soon be consigned to history.

The study, published in the journal Earth’s Future, is based on one of the most comprehensive future climate change model simulations to date. It determines at which warming levels unsafe ice conditions will be reached regionally with regard to transportation and recreational activities, including ice-fishing and ice-skating.

The study concludes that global warming will make lake ice much less safe.

The research team stated that is likely to affect indigenous communities in the Arctic as well as regional economies, where people rely on ice roads as a means of fast and comparatively cheap transportation and supply during winter.

Thinning future ice conditions also threaten unique ecosystems that have adapted to recurring frozen lake conditions over tens of thousands of years, according to the study.

Study corresponding author Dr. Lei Huang, of the IBS Centre for Climate Physics in South Korea, said: “Our results demonstrate that the duration of safe ice over the next 80 years will shorten by two to three weeks depending on the future warming level.

"In regions where lakes are used as ice roads to transport heavy goods and supplies, the number of days with safe ice conditions will decline by more than 90 percent, even for a moderate warming of 1.5C above early 20th Century conditions."

Study first author Dr. Iestyn Woolway, of Bangor University, said: “According to our computer model simulations, many densely populated regions in the mid-latitudes are projected to experience a large deterioration in safe ice conditions for recreational activities.

"Already a 1.5°C warming above early 20th Century conditions can lead to more than 60 percent loss in the duration of safe lake ice.

"This will negatively impact local communities that rely on the ice recreation industry.”

Dr. Sapna Sharma, of York University, Canada, added: “Given that our planet has already warmed by 1.2°C since the beginning of industrialization, it is timely to implement proper regional adaptation strategies in affected communities to mitigate economic losses and to avoid loss of lives.”