The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center today (19 Sept 2012) announced that the extent of Arctic sea ice reached an annual minimum of 1.32 million square miles, the lowest sea ice extent on record (since 1979 when satellites started to regularly monitor the ice). The extraordinary sea ice decline has enormous implications in the region, and has consequences that extend well south of the Arctic. “In a year of record-breaking extremes, shocking has become the new normal," says Lou Leonard, Managing Director for Climate Change at WWF-US. "But what’s happened in the Arctic this summer should be on the front page of every newspaper. This is an unprecedented planetary distress signal.”
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