The Wall Street Journal, not known for its balanced reporting of climate change, has published an article roundly acknowledging the phenononum, and pointing out its many  opportunities:

"The Northern Hemisphere's largest expanses of ice have thawed faster and more extensively this year than scientists have previously recorded. And the summer isn't over.

Studies suggest that more of the massive Greenland ice cap has melted than at any time since satellite monitoring began 33 years ago, while the Arctic sea's ice is shrinking to its smallest size in modern times.
This year's melting season is a Goliath," said geophysicist Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at City University of New York. "The ice is being lost at a very strong pace.

Scientists monitor the annual thaw closely because changes in the ice of the far North can raise sea levels and affect weather throughout the hemisphere by altering wind currents, heat distribution and precipitation.

Shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice since 2006, for instance, helped lead to seasons of severe snow across Europe, China and North America, researchers at Columbia University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported earlier this year."

However on the up side the piece notes that "As the seasonal ice abates more each year, new polar shipping lanes also open up, as do opportunities for mineral exploration. By some estimates, as much as 25% of the world's oil and natural-gas reserves are under the Arctic seafloor. Russia, Denmark, Norway and Canada are vying to control these assets."

it gets better "By Wednesday (5th Sept 2012), the Arctic sea ice had shrunk to 1.54 million square miles, about 70,000 square miles smaller than the previous modern low set in September 2007, according to the satellite readings compiled by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. By that measure, the six lowest Arctic sea ice levels on record all occurred in the past six years."

And with all that new shipping and newly available oil and gas, it can only get better....

Ongoing Extinction Level Event

One-fifth of invertebrate species are at risk of extinction according to an article in nature magazine this week. According to the piece, "One in five of the world’s invertebrate species are threatened with extinction, according to the latest report from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). From the checkerspot butterfly to the giant squid, spineless creatures are thought to represent around 99% of biodiversity on Earth. However, until now, scientists have never attempted a comprehensive review of their conservation status. In fact, fewer than 1% of invertebrates had been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which has listed threatened species on its Red List since 1963." it goes on to "conclude that the greatest threat is to freshwater invertebrates, including crabs and snails, followed by terrestrial and marine invertebrates. More mobile animals, such as butterflies and dragonflies, tended to have the least risk of extinction."

Overall it estimates that 34% of freshwater invertebrates including more than half of the world's freshwater snails and slugs could be under threat: "In the oceans, almost one-third of reef-building corals are endangered largely because of climate change, which causes coral bleaching and ocean acidification."

The report used IUCN metholology and assesed more than 12,000 species.

The IUCN has previously estimated that a similar proportion of assessed species at risk in a November 2009 report entitled "Extinction crisis continues apace" which states that "The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ shows that 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction. The results reveal 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians, 12 percent of all known birds, and 28 percent of reptiles, 37 percent of freshwater fishes, 70 percent of plants, 35 percent of invertebrates assessed so far are under threat.
“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” says Jane Smart, Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. "

Financial Times: Freak weather linked to global warming

According to the FT ( July 10, 2012 ): "After the US baked in a searing heatwave and as Russia mourns the deaths of more than 100 flood victims, scientists have produced what they say is groundbreaking research linking climate change to recent extreme weather.

Global warming “significantly” increased the odds of some of last year’s most unusual weather, including the brutal Texas drought and the freakishly warm November in Britain, according to findings released Tuesday alongside the latest “state of the climate” report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society."

The article goes on: “In the past you may have heard: ‘Well it isn’t possible to attribute an individual extreme weather event’, and the science really has moved on now. The way that it’s moved on is the realisation that we can look at how the odds of events have changed ... whether the likelihood of having an extreme weather event has increased or decreased,” said the UK Met Office’s Dr Peter Stott, co-editor of the new research.

Meanwhile at the end of the most bizzare summer season on record with extreme rain in Western Europe and extreme drought in Russia and North America, Nature reports "The ostensibly large number of recent extreme weather events has triggered intensive discussions, both in- and outside the scientific community, on whether they are related to global warming. Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heatwaves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. For other types of extreme, such as storms, the available evidence is less conclusive, but based on observed trends and basic physical concepts it is nevertheless plausible to expect an increase."

The ongoing hurricaine season should be interesting....