Reacting to new data showing record shrinking of Arctic sea ice, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:
"The canary in the coal mine is singing very loudly now. At this rate we could see the end of summer sea ice in our lifetimes. It's well known that the loss of ice at the North pole means the Earth absorbs more heat from the sun, instead of reflecting it, and that means even more warming. And yet the world's greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. When will politicians, like our own Gordon Brown, realise this is a planetary emergency and react accordingly? As it is Britain is on the cusp on building new runways and new coal-fired power stations. It’s almost unbelievable."
Scientists said today that record melting of the Arctic sea ice this summer has seen it shrink to an area one million square miles below the average minimum. The National Snow and Ice Data Centre in the US said the minimum extent of the sea ice this year shatters the previous all-time low in September
2005 by 460,000 square miles. At its lowest point during the summer melting season, sea ice coverage in the Arctic stood at 1.59 million square miles, compared with the previous low of 2.05 million square miles in 2005. The long-term average between 1979 and 2000 is 2.60 million square miles.
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