According to NSIDC director Mark Serreze “we are now in
uncharted territory”, while Greenpeace International Executive
Director Kumi Naidoo has described the race to save the Arctic
as "the defining environmental battle of our era". To help
understand the science behind the record melt, the Greenpeace
ship Arctic Sunrise took NSIDC scientist Dr Julienne Stroeve and
Nick Toberg, an ice scientist at Cambridge University, into the
Arctic to facilitate further research. We recently caught up
with them to discuss the changes happening at the top of the
planet. Why is this year so different, has it been particularly
warm, like in 2007 when the previous record was set? Julienne:
This summer the weather was not particularly warm or conducive
to ice loss, yet 2012 shattered the 2007 minimum. This tells me
that the ice was likely very thin and vulnerable to melting out
even under more normal weather conditions. As the Arctic loses
more of its store of old, thick ice, it is being replaced with
thinner first year ice, wh