Janne We native English speakers really, really appreciate the efforts on this blog of those who aren't (especially when a small misunderstanding raises a smile ;) Presumably you meant to say "seminal", which means highly original, influential, and important. "Seminary" is a school for priests. But, who knows, perhaps airborne radar is a hot topic at the Vatican nowadays!

Lord Soth wrote: "The section of ice outward from the right marker broke off..." Here's the updated North Pole webcam 2 animation showing this (apologies for the tilt - blame mother nature for that ;) http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z327/a_yeeles/North-Pole-webcam-4-12-July-2011-1.gif

Rob Dekker wrote: "A really cool feature is emerging in the NOAA2 [North Pole webcam] images..." Looks more like a mushroom to me ;) This intrigued me a lot so I looked at the archive to see where it came from. Here's an animation I've made for the last week: http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z327/a_yeeles/North-Pole-webcam-7-12-July-2011.gif What's interesting is how quickly the small berg that became the mushroom moved into frame, and how mobile the ice is. Note for example the movement of the small peak top left of the images. As Rob says, it's clear how much melting there is from the melt water - but is the mushroom rising or the water level falling?

Sorry! UAH link should be: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ Then choose Channel 5 from the dropdown.

Since predictions always include the caveat "depending on the weather this summer" it's of interest that Kuglugtuk's forecast for this week feature's weather we'd associate with a warm summer day here in the UK: http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/nu-16_metric_e.html Southern route of the North West Passage should free up really soon. While on the subject of temperatures, also of note is that, after falling away earlier this year under the influence of El Nina, 2011 has clambered back up to nearly equal 2010 on the UAH's AQUA Channel 5 daily global average temperature: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps The next few months are going to be really interesting!

Interesting piece on Greenland in Sunday's Observer (UK), includes this: "There has been much discussion in Greenland and elsewhere about the first sunrise this year in Ilulissat, down the coast. For the first time in living memory, the sun rose above the horizon two days early – a phenomenon that has baffled Greenlanders and scientists." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/06/greenland-inughuit-mineral-mining Ideas?

@Artful Dodger: re warm water entering arctic through Bering Strait/2007, the ocean temperature anomaly graph from NOAA/NWS etc suggests nothing out of the ordinary this year: http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png What is interesting are the values along the NWP which presumably help to explain the observed melt.