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This is frightening.   From The Guardian  with a Hat Tip to Darksyde at DKOS

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced.

Experts say they are “stunned” by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone.

So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia’s Arctic coast could open later this month. 

As Darksyde Points out  we don”t know what this is going to mean. It is possible that the process will accelerate, but short term predictions are difficult to make.  Still

The fact is we have no experience with this phenomenon. The Arctic Ice Cap isn’t just older than recorded human history, it’s probably much older than anatomically modern humans, and it likely spans a good chunk of relatively recent hominid evolution:  We evolved during a period of repeating glaciations on a planet with a permanent ice-covered North Pole.  But while H. sapiens will undoubtedly survive the demise of that ice-cap, the effect of those tumbling, melting dominoes on our globally intertwined civilization, and on the massive, growing ocean of human flesh now smothering the planet in greenhouse gases, may be a disaster of epic proportion. 

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