Arctic sea ice on track for a new record minimum

One of the research areas in which I work is how humans deal with new information about risk, especially climate risk. Thus I was very interested (and, of course, dismayed) to hear that we're currently on track for a record low in Arctic sea ice coverage.

The red line is us right now (2011) and note that it's currently tracking or exceeding the record minimum set in 2007. The decline in Arctic sea ice cover is widely considered to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence we have that we're dangerously altering the climate, though it also has its own more immediately concerning problems.

There's a discussion thread hosted by our friends at uber-climate blog Real Climate if you're so inclined, and a general-interest article about the decline and its relevance to non-climatologists on Andrew Freedman's Washington Post blog here.