This is going to be the most warm autumn we have recorded. The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the lowest since satellites began measuring minimum sea ice extent in 1979. In the end of Summer, in the Arctic, after six month of sun-light, naturally ice melt down, but the actual low extent of the ice cover doesn't seem to be in the range of a natural variability.
The new alert comes from the National Snow and Ice Data Center of the Colorado University (NSIDC). And while some people are still in denial about the warming effects and the growth of the World Green House, see on the NSIDC's twitter feed, Green Peace is collecting data to send to the world leaders at the Copenhagen Climate Conference to be held at the end of the year. The Green warriors are doing it on board of the Arctic Sunrise, from where Peter Wadhams, a world-class sea-ice expert,
says: "We're entering a new epoch of sea-ice melt in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. In five years' time most of the sea-ice could be gone in summer".This is not the first mission for the Arctic Sunrise, a ice breaker that, ironically was once a sealing vessel: in 1997 she became the first ship to circumnavigate James Ross Island in the Antarctic, which previously was an impossible journey until a 200m thick ice shelf connecting the island to the Antarctic continent collapsed. This was just one of the many signs of climate change which the Arctic Sunrise has helped to document.
