Scientists aboard our ship the MV Arctic Sunrise measure the thickness of the Arctic sea ice.
Today we're expecting an announcement from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre - the US body that monitors the Arctic - about the 'seasonal low' of Arctic sea ice for 2009.
Every year, the Arctic sea ice - the floating cap of frozen ocean that sits over the north of the planet - shrinks and grows with the seasons. In the Arctic summer it melts away and gets smaller, in winter it grows and get bigger. It being mid-September we've just passed the height of Arctic summer, and today the NSIDC will tell us how small the ice cap got this year.
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