In September of 2012, scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data center announced a new all-time low was reached for coverage, or extant, by sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the satellite observation era. Just 1.32 million square miles, or only 24 percent, was covered by sea ice on the 16th of that month, significantly lower than the previous record of 29 percent, which was set in 2007. The significant role that the Arctic sea ice plays in global weather patterns and ocean currents is impossible to overstate. Since scientists now project from current trends that the Arctic will be entirely devoid of summer sea ice by the middle of this century, scenes and seascapes such as these may soon - geologically time-speaking - be lost forever.
