This is not science fiction

Ice scientists around the world watched with a mixture of alarm and astonishment as the great Arctic Sea ice sheet shrank over the northern summer to its lowest level in memory.

The rapid melt exceeded almost every scenario the scientists had modelled. But as they crunched the numbers they found that since 1979 the summer sea ice has been dwindling by 10 per cent or 72,000 square kilometres each decade.


Complex natural forces have contributed to the record melt but the impact of global warming on the fragile polar ice sheet is inescapable.

The Arctic is warming at a rate almost twice the global average and fears are mounting of a reinforcing process where the melting of ice and snow triggers more global warming.

“We have started an accelerating process and we do not know its outcome either in the region experiencing the change nor at a global level,” the Norwegian environment minister, Erik Solheim, warned.

Brisbane Times