Arctic Ice Melt Nears Last Year's Record Low

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Arctic sea ice is approaching last year's record minimum and, for the first time in recorded history, both the Northwest and Northeast Passages stand open at the same time, scientists reported this week.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center said ice coverage this month is tracking near the 2007 record, itself so extreme that researchers called it a "death spiral" signal. The melt season runs through mid-September.

Both legendary shipping routes — the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northeast Passage over Russia — are open simultaneously, something satellite records have never before shown.

The shrinking ice has set off an Arctic land rush: Russia planted a flag on the North Pole seabed last year, Canada is building patrol ships, and the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic holds a fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

Polar bears were listed as a threatened species in May, the first listing attributed directly to climate change, over objections from the state of Alaska.

"The Arctic is the world's air conditioner, and it's losing coolant," an ice researcher said. "What happens there no longer stays there."

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Associated Press writers contributed to this report.

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