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Humans are essentially putting the brakes on the next ice age, according to a September 2009 study that represents the most extensive work to date on Arctic climate change.

Arctic temperatures (seen in blue, above) have cooled over the past 2,000 years due to a natural tilt in Earth's axis. But human-caused global warming reversed that trend in the mid-1990s (seen in red).

Analysis of records from lake sediments, ice cores, and tree rings found the same results as computer models, strengthening the researchers' conclusions.

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One of the planet's most fragile and pristine ecosystems sits atop a bounty of untapped fossil fuels.

Melting polar ice is making the Arctic more accessible to shipping and other industry.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are recoverable in the frozen region north of the Arctic Circle.

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The thickness of Arctic sea ice "plummeted" last winter, thinning by as much as one-fifth in some regions, satellite data has revealed.

A study by UK researchers showed that the ice thickness had been fairly constant for the previous five winters.

The team from University College London added that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice was decreasing.

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The ice that has covered the Arctic basin for a million years will be gone in little more than six years because of global warming, a University of Manitoba geoscientist said.

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Autumn temperatures in the Arctic are at record levels, the Arctic Ocean is getting warmer and less salty as sea ice melts, and reindeer herds appear to be declining, researchers reported Thursday.

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The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history as climate change has made it possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.

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Markham Ice Shelf, one of just five remaining ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic, split away from Ellesmere Island in early August. They also said two large chunks totalling 120 square km had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in size by 60%.

"The changes ... were massive and disturbing," says Warwick Vincent, director of the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec.

Temperatures in large parts of the Arctic have risen far faster than the global average in recent decades, a development that experts say is linked to global warming.

These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present

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The concern over the climate impact of sub-Arctic thaw is not new. The U.N. has called the melting of permafrost a "wild card" that could dramatically worsen global warming by releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases.

"The balance of evidence suggests that Arctic feedbacks that amplify warming, globally and regionally, will dominate during the next 50 to 100 years," warned the UNEP Year Book 2008 when it was published earlier this year. "As warming continues, these feedbacks will likely intensify. We may be approaching thresholds that are difficult to predict precisely, but crossing such thresholds could have serious global consequences."

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