"The prospect of the arctic being ice-free within the next decade stuns me"

Why? It's been free in the past. Even back as far as 1880 a ship made it ice free from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Also in 1944 a wooden RCMP boat on patrols made it through there ice free on several trips across the top.

It's not a problem.

Richard
London, Ont.

No one is ahead of their time, just the rest of humanity is slow to catch on.

You appear to be confused. We are not talking about the northwest passage, which are the trips to which you refer and which, by the way, were not completely ice free. No, we are talking about the entire arctic, all of it, every stinking square inch of ocean, being ice free. If you fail to understand the impact of that, then you need to refresh your understanding of the topic.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone