Miss me? OK, I get the picture...

After a prolonged absence - due to work rather than a lack of Earth-threatening events unfortunately - it's time to catch up.

I remember reading somewhere that we are now supposed to be going through a period where the world cools down (or stays about the same temperature, I forget which) for a while. Apparently, the warming effect is cyclical and will continue where it left off in a few years. This, in itself, worried me - you can see governmental scientists saying "Oh, don't worry about it anymore. Look, we're cooling down." The last thing we need is for nations to stop taking Climate Change seriously... well, any less seriously than they do already.

Anyway, back to my point...

In light of this expected non-warming period, I was shocked to read that, even though the Arctic experienced a colder winter, the sea ice had melted even faster than last year - which, I understand, broke all records for ice loss at the time.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) - a US-based organisation, hence the wacky spelling of 'centre' ;-) - this year started with a larger covering of ice than in 2007, yet we are already down to the same levels as in June last year.

From the report on the NSIDC website:

Average Arctic Ocean surface air temperatures in May were generally higher than normal. While anomalies were modest (+1 to 3 degrees Celsius, +2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) over most of the region, temperatures over the Baffin Bay region were as much as 6 degrees C (11 degrees F) above normal.

My feeling is that even with a cooling period, it appears that the process is not going to be halted. Year upon year, the Arctic sea ice is declining. The long term impact - in terms of sea level rises, desalination of the oceans, loss of natural habitat and conditions, and so on - is difficult to predict... however, I'm not expecting it to be a good thing.