[chessplayer]

Because this past winters ice cover was so thin compared to previous years, it looks like this years melting is happening even faster than last summer. Compare this 6/26/08 picture;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

to the ice cover on 6/26/07;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/archive.html

Deep purple areas = full ice concentration.
Lighter purple = 80% concentration.
Red areas = 60%
Yellow areas = 40%
Black areas = open water.

[Glenn]

This is great news!

I can be an orange farmer in Alaska!

[Aussiebabe]

This thread was posted earlier today. There is an easier way to compare dates, actually it is on the same site you reference. http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=26&fy=2007&sm=06&sd=26&sy=2008

[palmer]

Don't see it. I'm comparing http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ARCHIVE/20070626.jpg with http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.jpg and there's clearly more ice this year than last.

[Straight Vermonter]

At the link I clicked on the side by side image to compare two different years. It defaulted to 1990 vs 2008. There appears to be thicker ice cover now than in 1980.

[Old Professer]

Here's the long-term graph from your link, the current level is shown as an upward spike on the downward trend: