Despite a normal winter and cool summer for those of us in Minnesota, the rest of the world had an all-time record of high temperatures this year. The changes are not going unnoticed in the Arctic; researchers say air temperatures in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 2.5 C (4.5 F) since 1970 - much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) a year, and a further 7 C (13 F) temperature rise is possible this century, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). At a meeting in Greenland in early September 2009, scientists from the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Greenland Climate Center, and other organizations said that the thickness and volume of Arctic ice is decreasing at an even more rapid rate than the precipitous decline in ice extent; Arctic Ocean winter ice thinned by 2.2 feet from 2004 to 2008.

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