The Arctic Ocean could experience ice-free summers within the next 20 years — much earlier than previously predicted — unless human greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, a study warns.

Computer models predict climate change will cause the Arctic to be nearly free of sea ice during the summer by the middle of this century.

However, a closer examination of long-term temperature cycles in the tropical Pacific points towards an ice-free Arctic in September, the month with the least sea ice, on the earlier side of forecasts, according to the research published in Geophysical Research Letters.

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A living member of species of tortoise not seen in more than 110 years and feared to be extinct has been found in a remote part of the Galapagos