In the past few days, the US Government has de-classified and released via the United States Geological Survey website a number of very high resolution images showing exceedingly clear evidence of warming in the Arctic.

Now, I don't know if these images have had their resolution decreased, but I thought that spy satellites were capable of much higher than the stated 1 metre resolution.  No matter.  

The first example (warning, all these images are at least 20MB) shows the seashore around Barrow.  Barrow is on the northern coastline of Alaska and is completely locked in by ice during the northern winter.  By July of each year, the ice has melted sufficiently to allow barge access to bring supplies from the south.  The first image in this set shows the state of the ice in July 2006, with the sea ice situated around 800m to 1000m off the coast.  The second image, just one year later, shows no sea ice at all within the image's 3000m of offshore coverage.

The next example, of the Beaufort Sea, approximately 200km north east of Barrow, shows a substantial loss of summer open-sea ice.  Whereas the first image, in August 2001, shows a mass of sea ice with a degree of melting, the second image, in August 2007 shows open sea, with minor, small patches of ice – clearly melting.

These two pairs of images display an alarming change in the proximity and amount of sea ice over a relatively short time.  Read on for the impact this has on the locals.