Polar Bears

For the first time in human history, it has become possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.

New satellite images show that both the Northwest and Northeast passages are now ice free. Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a "death spiral" caused by global warming.

The passages are open. It's an historic event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by.

It's news that the UK press is carrying. Here's the story in the Independent; and here's the one in the Telegraph.

But here's the one in the Houston Chronicle: it doesn't mention the historic development, only that "climatologists were eager to see whether the record low of about 1.6 million square miles" of summer ice melt in the Arctic would be duplicated again this summer.