Oh come on: "the first time". Explorers reports on the the polar ice cap have described it as highly variable for the past 400 years. Satellites have only been checking for the past 40 years - maybe, like the refrigerator light it is not there when you're not looking. Anyway, God wouldn't allow this to happen as Santa Claus would have no place to live.

Could this melting be a result of the extreme volcanic activity discovered recently in the Arctic sea bed beneath the North Pole? Let's at least look at the situation using common sense and scientific methods before jumping to conclusions.

Maybe this will be the bellweather event that finally opens the eyes of those people who don't believe global warming/climate change is real... very sad...

How gullible and ignorant are people these days? Did you know that the ice caps on Mars are melting, too? Do you think it's because of all those Land Rovers and Hummers that are on the Red Planet? Maybe its all the people there. Why, it would have to be... because how else could the ice be melting on an uninhabited planet? Oh wait, its that one thing... what's it called? We see it every day.. . oh yeah- THE SUN. Ha! Look for the far-left to start filing lawsuits and federal regulations against the Sun and new groups of Anti-Sun protesters to sprout up in a town near you! Maybe they can regulate what time of day it's allowed to shine and how hot it is able to get at any certain point.

Really? Ice melting in the summer? Who'da thunk?

Also, you failed to include this quote from the article...

"The brief lack of ice at the top of the globe will not bring any immediate consequences, Serreze said."

Weren't you globalist kool-ade drinkers telling us that if this happens, we here in Florida would be underwater???? Now nothing's gonna happen????

That is absolutely terrifying, and I hope the symbol is not wasted and results in real action.

"With many scientists predicting just a few years ago that total loss would not occur in summer until at least 2050."

Not "few years ago" but until last year. Here's the time line:

2070-2100 (IPCC Feb-07)
2040 (NCAR Dec-06)
2030 (NSIDC Sep-07)
2013 (NPS Dec-07)
This summer (Feb 08)

The arctic melt is the most shocking reminder that our climate is a non-linear system - that the changes are not always gradual. Sometimes things can go wrong rather abruptly.

Also, that even the world's best scientists can not be relied upon when it comes to predicting the date of changes.

Ummm, did these climate scientists, before they are quoted in this report, know there was a large undersea volcano under the Arctic ice sheet, in the region near the North Pole where the melt they are worried about is occurring? Probably not, as most scientists evidently didn't think this was possible at such a depth until reported about two days ago, but, yes it is. It erupted violently in 1999, apparently the same year an abnormal melt occurred, and it and others could still be in action. I believe those volcano things create heat, and CO2 as well. Now it is suddenly estimated there may be 10 times the number of undersea volcanoes than scientists thought , before just the other day.

I'd say the climate modelers and global warming alarmists take that into consideration, rework the doomsday climate models yet again to account for previously unknown or unrecognized factors, before blaming human activity.

It isn't terrifying, global climate changes.
Also, do you not see the words "informal betting poll"?
I'm not all that worried.

what ever, if this is happening the earth may flip...when it does you'll need an anchor to the ground a replelling rope and rigging would be great.or a rope tied to any thing you love or will need not sure how long this will take to return full gravity but what a ride . hold on to your hat...

This article has one misstatement. First, it is talking about the geographic North Pole. Not the entire ice cap. Then it is talking about the prediction of the entire ice cap melting which is still some time off though now it is predicted earlier than 2050. Not this summer though... Kenny, you have to be careful because skeptics love to jump all over misstatements like this. Even if you do say everything exactly right though skeptics will be more than glad to come up with weird facts like
[“There are 3 times as many polar bears as there were 50 years ago” – Or assertions that “Polar bears are growing in numbers” or that “…the world hasn’t warmed since 1998” (these last two from Andrew Bolt who simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about and isn’t afraid to show it)] http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/blog/2008/06/23/they-shoot-polar-bears-dont-they/

Still, if you look at the satellite images of the polar ice cap there is a dramatic amount of ice melting there which is now way beyond what Al Gore pointed out in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth." I wouldn't automatically assume it is due to the volcanoes Mr. C. I don't think the deep sea volcanoes are melting the ice on Greenland and several oceanographers concur that it is not causing the arctic melting that we are seeing. Real oceanographic scientists are much more aware than the Rush Limbaugh want-a-be's out there making up their own theories like this.
Most Climate modeling has been very conservative. Global warming over the last 25 years shows an increase of 2 degrees Celsius/ century and the Arctic region is at +3 degrees over what it was 100 years ago. And greenhouse gases are only increasing... And population is not slowing down any time soon.
This is a real serious situation Mr. C. I wouldn't just blow it all off with a bunch of half baked explanations about volcanoes or Michelle's "so what" attitude "global climate changes", otherwise meaningless arguments like Stevo's "Ice melts" statement, or controversial theories about how ice is melting on Mars whereas the conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.
Why is it so hard to understand the effect that greenhouse gases have on our planet? Why has this theory never been adequately proven wrong? All I have ever seen from the scientists who have a problem with the greenhouse gas theory is that they just come up with the statement that it can't account for global warming. They have not in the least disproved it. How could they ever disprove the basic facts about the effect of green house gases on the climate? Many of them have a different theory which invariably is directly disproved by many other scientists with real arguments why their controversial theory is false. And their statement that it could have nothing to do with green house gases or human activity is just hanging out there like a kite without a string waisting everybody's time and energy chasing after bogus headlines.
The problem is that people like Mr. C. and others actually believe these things without doing much investigation.

"True skepticism requires a logical thought process and some notion of a well-formed argument" - Thomas Schueneman