I have pasted some links below based on a 15 minute google search. I didn't take time to select only reputable sources as I did in my links above. I don't think there is any serious disagreement with the fact that a dramatic warming trend is in progress in the artic (the only area of disagreement by some is why.)
"Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces. The polar ice cap as a whole is shrinking. Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free by the end of the century"
"The melting of once-permanent ice is already affecting native people, wildlife and plants. When the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf splintered, the rare freshwater lake it enclosed, along with its unique ecosystem, drained into the ocean. Polar bears, whales, walrus and seals are changing their feeding and migration patterns, making it harder for native people to hunt them. And along Arctic coastlines, entire villages will be uprooted because they're in danger of being swamped. The native people of the Arctic view global warming as a threat to their cultural identity and their very survival."
"The evidence for global warming across Alaska is stark. The average temperature has risen 3C - 4.5C in winter, 10 times the rate elsewhere in the world. In Kotzebue the tundra has turned from spongy to dry and the sourdocks and many other plants have disappeared. The region's polar bears have lost 20% of their weight in the past few years. The arctic ice is 40% thinner than in 1960. In Deering it is melting so fast that hunting on it has to abandoned early, and in Point Lay it is now too thin to walk on. Down in Fairbanks, the gateway to the arctic, the golf course is remarkable for two reasons: you can watch people teeing off in summer at midnight and you can see that they have some unintended holes to contend with. The holes and the dips and waves in the adjoining Farmer's Loop Road, are the most obvious examples of what happens when the permafrost, which underlies the region to a depth of 600 metres (2,000ft), starts to melt."
"The commercial shows the disastrous effect of receding sea ice on polar bear populations, and the hardship that more snowfall brings to the endangered Peary caribou. 'Our way of life is on the edge of extinction. Plants and animals are dying,' said Rosemarie Kuptana, a former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference who was recruited to host the 30-second spot."
'Nature [MAGAZINE] went on to detail the visible and measurable impact of climate change in Alaska.
“Temperatures have changed more in Alaska over the past 30 years than they have anywhere else on Earth: winters have warmed by a startling 2-3 °C, compared with a global average of 1 °C. That's guaranteed to have dramatic effects in an Arctic landscape, where even small temperature changes can make the difference between freezing and melting. In Fairbanks, a city built on permafrost, the annual mean temperature is just -2 °C. If it pops above zero, residents can say goodbye to the frozen ground beneath their feet, along with the free iceboxes in their basements. The impacts on wildlife, and the people who depend on it for their livelihoods, will be huge.”
Additionally, at this week’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Inuit people of Nunavut in northern Canada revealed that they are asking the American Commission on Human Rights to visit the Arctic to see the devastation being caused by global warming as a matter of human rights.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, which represents all 155,000 of her people inside the Arctic circle, said: “We want to show that we are not powerless victims. These are drastic times for our people and require drastic measures.”
“We are already bearing the brunt of climate change - without our snow and ice our way of life goes. We have lived in harmony with our surroundings for millennia, but that is being taken away from us,” Watt-Cloutier continued.
"People worry about the polar bear becoming extinct by 2070 because there will be no ice from which they can hunt seals, but the Inuit face extinction for the same reason and at the same time.'
'I spent many hours talking to the Inuit hunters and the people of Qaanaaq and Siorapuluk who told me of the problems they were facing in terms of changing weather patterns.
The ice is melting sooner and freezing later, it's thinner which makes hunting difficult; the winds are more unpredictable.
The polar bears and other animals are changing their hunting and migratory patterns; the type of snow falling is changing, which again is making hunting on the ice more difficult and dangerous.
I left the Arctic having formulated the conclusion that their concern over their land and future is great, although an element of sad resignation exists.
The Inuit voice is almost inaudible on the world stage and one cannot help but wonder if anyone even knows they exist.
Amid the media hype of the race for the US presidency in 2004, I noticed a tiny newspaper report that said the world's foremost scientists predicted the north polar ice would all but disappear in the next 50-70 years.
The Arctic is the world's early warning system and the red light is flashing - just how arrogant and complacent can we afford to be?'
'Scientists for years have predicted that as the Arctic climate warms, sea ice, glaciers and permafrost will melt, sea levels will rise, and the tree line will move north. As Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio, their predictions are coming true, and the changes they'll bring will have a profound effect on Alaska's people and environment.'
Already global climate change is affecting the lives and livelihoods of some of the world's most vulnerable people, threatening millennia-old cultures, and literally stealing the ground beneath people's feet. The people of the Inuit nation near the Arctic Circle are seeing deformed fish, depleted caribou herds, dying forests, starving seals, and emaciated polar bears. Recently, the Inuit began battling with northward-migrating mosquitoes and other infections disease-carrying insects, which they had never before encountered. As the sea ice melts, rising water levels are washing away entire coastal villages.
'Temperature: Mean annual surface air temperature over the past 50 years has increased 3.6 to 5.4°F in Alaska and Siberia and decreased by 1.8°F over southern Greenland.
Sea ice: Sea ice extent in late summer decreased 15 to 20% over the past 30 years (see above).
Glaciers: Between 1961 and 1998, North American glaciers lost about 108 cubic miles of ice—about equivalent to spreading one foot of water over California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
Vegetation: White spruce, the most valuable timber species of the North American boreal forest, experienced sharp declines as summer temperatures frequently exceeded the tree's critical threshold temperature.
Marine Animals: Almost no seal pups, dependent on sea ice, survived in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence during the ice-free years of 1967, 1981, 2000, 2001, and 2002.
Fisheries: Warming in the Bering Sea after 1977 has increased the herring, Pacific cod, skates, and flatfish species, and Pacific salmon commercial catches have been high since 1980.
Indigenous Culture: Peary caribou populations on Canadian arctic islands plummeted from 26,000 in 1961 to 1000 by 1997, affecting people whose culture is intertwined with caribou'
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