The Arctic sea ice is the canary in the coalmine of Earth’s climate system. And when instead of plugging that gas leak you just replace the dead birds by live ones –– indeed, these canaries just keep dying year after year.

In September 2011 it came down to satellite resolution whether or not the 2007 Arctic melting record was broken. This year no one needs glasses to see what’s going on. The above NSIDC graph shows the Arctic sea ice extent until August 20 – and it’s clear with another month of ‘probable melting’ ahead 2012 will set the new Arctic melting record. What’s even more shocking is the old record could be gone by next week, August that is, a month early. Let’s keep a close eye…

© Rolf Schuttenhelm | www.bitsofscience.org