Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.8 percent per decade.

Summer Arctic sea ice is predicted to disappear almost completely by the middle of this century.

"We may lose the summer ice cover as early as 2030. This is in itself much earlier than projections from nearly all climate model simulations." - Prof. Mark Serreze, Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre

Scientists are now investigating connections between the huge changes we have seen in the Arctic and changes to the jet stream resulting in increasingly dramatic impacts on extreme weather events at lower latitudes.