Abstract Arctic sea ice has declined at sharply contrasting rates over the past four decades—modest before 2000 and rapid thereafter. Using observational and model evidence, we show that large tropical volcanic eruptions can trigger decade‐long Arctic sea ice recoveries, and that without the 1982 El Chichón and 1991 Pinatubo eruptions, Arctic sea ice would have declined approximately 1.5 times faster before 2000. We further show a model’s sensitivity to volcanic aerosol forcing scales with its sensitivity to GHG forcing across CMIP6 models, offering a new strategy to identify models with realistic climate response to radiative forcing. Following this, a selected subgroup of models that accurately simulate long‐term warming trend and decade‐long post‐Pinatubo recovery project ice‐free Arctic summer up to 20 years earlier than the full ensemble. These findings underscore the critical, yet underappreciated, importance of evaluating climate models against anthropogenic and volcanic forcing when projecting the future of Arctic sea ice.