The Arctic system is moving toward a new state that falls outside the envelope of glacial-interglacialfluctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history. This future Arctic is likely to have dramatically less permanent ice than exists at present. At the present rate of change, a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean within a century is a real possibility, a state not witnessed for at least a million years. The change appears to be driven largely by feedback-enhanced global climate warming, and there seem to be few, if any, processes or feedbacks within the Arctic system that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this super interglacial state. For nearly 30 years, Arctic sea ice extent Stroeve et al., 2005> and thickness < Rothrock et al., 2003> have been falling dramatically (Figure 1). Permafrost temperatures are rising and coverage is decreasing <Osterkamp and Romanovsky, 1999>. Mountain glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet are shrinking <Meier et al., 2003; Box et al., 2004>. Evidence suggests we are witnessing the early stage of an anthropogenically induced global warming superimposed on natural cycles <Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001>, reinforced by reductions in Arctic ice.