"Sea ice in the Arctic is again in rapid retreat this summer, putting the region on pace to match the record lows seen in 2007, the head of Russia's environmental agency said Tuesday, according to a Bloomberg News report.

The sea ice figures cited by Aleksandr Frolov, chief of Russia's federal Hydrometeorological and Environmental Monitoring Service, dovetail with data released this month by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Both Russian and United States data show Arctic sea ice extending to about 4.2 million square miles in June, the lowest ice coverage recorded for that month in the satellite data record, which began in 1979. If the melting trend continues, sea ice levels could fall by September to less than 1.6 million square miles, the low recorded in 2007.

Mr. Frolov told Bloomberg that the fast pace of the melt could mean that the North Pole could be ice-free during the summer within just few a decades, far sooner than previously estimated. Arctic waterways typically choked with ice are now opening up, he said.

But there are some indications that this summer may not be one for the record books. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, ice loss has already slowed in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas as a result of "tongues" of thicker, older ice in the region. Nonetheless, continued rapid ice loss in July would set the stage for a new low."
(Green Blog in NYT)

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Please note that the previous decade has been the warmest decade in recorded history. See this report for hard data.)