We didn’t really know–until now. The ocean, which has risen an average of 8 inches since 1900, should rise another 3 feet or so by 2100, but without an accurate record of where we started, we can’t know if the melting starts to speed up or (hopefully) slow down.

On the Climate Central website, Michael D. Lemonick quotes researcher Ian Joughin as saying, "There are lots of processes in play and it remains unclear whether the ice loss will level out or slow down or speed up. We thought we understood ice sheets, but it’s clear we don’t. We need a lot more observations and a lot better modeling."
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One of the world’s leading ice experts has predicted the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years. That’s earlier than the Earth’s predicted demise in December of 2012, but it could be a major cause of it.

In the September 17th edition of the Guardian, John Vidal quotes climatologist Peter Wadhams as calling it "a global disaster."
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NASA doesn’t just search for life on other planets, its satellites also search the Earth for evidence of melting glaciers. Their "IceSat," which uses lasers to measure the thickness of ice, has discovered that Arctic ice is vanishing 50% faster than expected–at a rate of almost 500 cubic miles per year, since 2004.The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet.

On BBC News, Roger Harrabin quotes climate researcher Seymour Laxon as saying, "We have to be cautious until our data has been properly analyzed as part of a climate model, but this does suggest that the Arctic might be ice-free in summer for a day at least by the end of the decade.
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