Researchers predict that within 20 years ice cover will be completely gone during the warmer months. A report was complied by the UK-based Catlin Arctic Survey and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)that indicates the Arctic Ocean will be "largely ice free" during summer within a decade. As the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears face extinction.

Temperature change in the Arctic is happening at a greater rate than other places in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is expected to continue in the future.

It's one of the coldest and most remote areas on Earth, but the Arctic region has long held great strategic interest for a number of nations. Now, a Florida State University researcher is leading an international team that is working to produce one of the most comprehensive histories to date of the northernmost part of the world from the late 19th century to the present.

The thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic declined by as much as 19% last winter compared to the previous five winters, according to data from ESA’s Envisat satellite.

A new NASA study shows that the rising frequency and intensity of arctic storms over the last half century, attributed to progressively warmer waters, directly provoked acceleration of the rate of arctic sea ice drift, long considered by scientists as a bellwether of climate change.

After reaching the second-lowest extent ever recorded last month, sea ice in the Arctic has begun to refreeze in the face of autumn temperatures, closing both the Northern Sea Route and the direct route through the Northwest Passage.

A scientific expedition this fall will map the unexplored Arctic seafloor where the U.S. and Canada may have sovereign rights over natural resources such as oil and gas and control over activities such as mining.

Following last summer's record minimum ice cover in the Arctic, current observations from ESA's Envisat satellite suggest that the extent of polar sea-ice may again shrink to a level very close to that of last year.

Several snowmobiles navigated speedily over arctic ice and snow in Alaska's outback in late June.

The loss of sea ice due to climate change could spell disaster for polar bears and other Arctic marine mammals. The April Special Issue of Ecological Applications examines such potential effects, puts them in historical context, and describes possible conservation measures to mitigate them.

For the first time, a German has taken part in a Russian drift expedition and has explored the atmosphere above the central Arctic during the polar night. Jürgen Graeser, a member of the Potsdam Research Unit of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, has just returned home to Germany. As a member of the Russian expedition NP 35, which consisted of 21 persons, he has spent seven months on a drifting ice floe in the Arctic.

NASA has stated that recent satellite images have shown that despite an unusually cold winter in the Arctic, the old or perennial ice on both the North and South Poles has continued to melt while the level of 'new ice' has increased.