Arctic ice comes and goes every year but this year it seems to have been going rather more than usual. For the second time this month a key record has been broken. “Today is a historic day. This is the least sea ice we’ve ever seen in the satellite record, and we have another month left to go in the melt season this year,” Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, said last week (AP). CanWest News says scientists in Japan have confirmed the US data and both papers have a worrying prediction from Serreze that a complete melt of the ice could occur as early as 2030.

Ice can be measured in terms of extent and in terms of overall area. The records for extent have now been broken, according to data from Serreze’s centre, joining the records for area, which were broken at the start of the month. As the Cryosphere Today blog noted on 9 August: “Today the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest ice area in observed history. The new record (3.98 million sq. km) came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs.”

A good article in the Financial Times looks in detail at what the melting ice means in light of the current political scramble for control of the area (which we highlighted in Nature at the start of this month). Those wanting more context should look at Gabrielle Walker’s Nature feature on climate tipping points from last year.

Image: Full moon over Arctic ice. NOAA Climate Program Office, NABOS 2006 Expedition