Recent data has shown that 2009’s arctic melt is approaching 2007’s record low. Artctic sea ice reflects sunlight and thus moderates the global temperature. The sea ice has declined dramatically over at least thirty years with extreme melts in the summer.

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The past few years have seen a fundamental change in both the ice and climate in the arctic, an area known as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for global warming.

In September 2007 the arctic sea ice minimum extent and thickness was the lowest ever recorded. It prompted may scientists such as NASA’s Dr. Jay Zwally to speculate that the summer sea ice might disappear by 2012.

The US National Snow and Ice Data Center has been at the forefront of climate research for decades, focusing on the degenerative situation of the Arctic circle and tundra.

The tundra is a treeless landscape that circles the poles, frozen solid most of the year.

Researcher from the University of British Columbia Dr. Greg Henry has been working for two decades in the Arctic. He reports temperatures in the tundra region have risen by a degree a decade since 1970.

Henry added “we’re finding that the tundra is actually giving off a lot more nitrous oxide and methane than anyone had thought before.”

Methane and Nitrous Oxide are powerful greenhouse gasses. Methane is 72 times more warming than carbon over a 20 year timeframe and makes up a large portion of anthropogenic emissions.

The methane released from thawing permafrost (permanently frozen ground around the tundra) and clathrates (frozen submarine deposits) are a concern to climate scientists because it increases a positive feedback effect in which could multiply the planet’s atmospheric methane concentration exponentially with devastating climatic effects.

It is speculated that such a release of methane may have contributed to a past mass extinction known as the Great Dying.