Posted by: pa (190 posts)
October 16, 200710:26 PM

I recently worked on a project for the Wall Street Journal Online which tracked the rate at which the arctic ice cap has melted over the last quarter of a century. Click here to see the astonishing rate of decrease since 1979 - with the past six years or so of particular worry (you may have to turn your popup blocker off for the link to work... sorry). The magenta line is the median ice extent and is an average of where the ice would normally be on September 1st of each year (around 7.5 million sq miles). As you can see above this summer only reached 4.4 million sq miles. The graphic also covers how arctic tourism industry is booming as visitors want to catch of glimpse of the environment before its gone.