WATCHING THE ARCTIC MELT

Newsweek - Skimming over the top of the world feels a bit like being on a different planet, according Rick Steiner, a marine conservation researcher at the University of Alaska. For the past two years, Steiner has led research missions flying low over thousands of miles of Arctic seas for a handful of polar climate scientists, some of whom work for the federal government. He times the daylong voyage to coincide with the time of year when sea ice is at a minimum, the exact end of summer melting in mid-September, before the autumn cool begins to refreeze some of the water. Having lived in Alaska for 30 years, Steiner can tell you in personal detail how the minimum has shrunk from year to year. He calls the voyage his annual "bearing witness to the Arctic crisis" trip.

The crisis has been mapped out in precise detail in slide shows and research papers, with startling statistics. The past three summers have seen the lowest ice volume ever recorded, according to data released annually by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The sea-ice minimum in 2007 (1.6 million square miles) was the single lowest year, with nearly 40 percent less ice than the seasonal average recorded over the past three decades. And the problem is only expected to worsen. As the ice melts, it releases highly concentrated carbon and methane that is locked in the permafrost, creating an accelerating warming loop. An additional compounding factor is that dark oceans absorb more of the sun's energy than light-colored ice, which reflects a large portion of it. That means that the more ice melts over the summer, the more open ocean there is, which leads to more absorbed energy and warmer oceans, which means that less ice forms the following winter, which leads to even more open ocean the following year. Early this past summer, researchers thought 2009 would be even worse than 2007 in terms of melting, until a late-arriving wind from the equator brought cool air that prevented even more melting. NSIDC director Mark Serreze calls it a "small blip" on a downward-sloping line.

"When you're actually looking out the window and seeing mile after mile of warm ocean water where there used to be sea ice that you once walked around on, it gives you the certainty that something major is going on there," says James Overland, a marine environmental researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the handful of researchers on the flight.