The Great Melt: This animation of images taken over time by NASA satellites shows Arctic sea ice declining for the past 30 years. The year to year rate of decline 11.5 percent per decade. Via The Bridge. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio
Global warming is remaking the Arctic, with changes like ice-free sea lanes across the Arctic Ocean in summer, or no-longer-so-eternal permafrost on land, unprecedented in human history.
How much one laments or celebrates these changes probably depends on where one's values fall across a scale extending from “untouched wilderness” at one end to “lucrative oil field” at the other. But it's indisputable that they're creating new opportunities for scientists to learn more about the region than they've been able to in the past--and a new sense of urgency.