What science says

The short summary

The Arctic region is warming nearly more than 3 times faster than the rest of the world. Under all IPCC scenarios, even the most optimistic one, the Arctic Sea will be completely ice free during the summer already as soon as the 30’s or 40’s. In this way, the Arctic will loose its power as “global refrigerator” and regulator of global temperature. An ice free summer will create a strong feedback loop as the ice sheets will not be able to reflect the heat and energy of the sun (the so called Albedo effect). Instead, the dark ocean will absorb most of the heat which further accelerates the temperature increase of the Arctic Sea and the melting of the remaining ice.

This risks many devastating consequences, such as further global warming, potentially the release of vast methane reserves from under the seabed, accelerated melting of the Greenland icesheet, and the increase of extreme weather events on the Northern Hemisphere. What happens in the Arctic, does not stay in the Arctic. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is a great resource with up-to-date information on the Arctic and Antarctic.