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Drone footage shows extent of Arctic ice loss

From the air, the impact of climate change on the Arctic Circle is clear to see.

What was once a solid ice sheet is now water scattered with ever smaller lumps of broken up ice.

With rising Arctic temperatures, this year's sea ice minimum is expected to be the second-lowest expanse in four decades of record-keeping.

This week a team of scientists visited the region on a Greenpeace research vessel.

They said the dwindling ice cover means an uncertain future for animals, such as seals and polar bears.

Dr Kirsten Thompson is from the University of Exeter in the UK.

"It just shows us how rapidly and how profoundly this area is changing and the Artic is such an incredible habitat for these species so we know that the distribution of these species is going to change, some species unfortunately will die out in years to come and others will invade this area."

New research published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change found that this long-frozen region is already shifting to an entirely new climate.

Sea ice, temperatures and rainfall are all now being measured well beyond the range of what the region had previously experienced.

Tom Foreman, a polar wildlife expert and arctic guide, says it's a concerning development.

"The numbers that we're getting in terms of extent of sea ice decrease each year put us pretty much on red alert in terms of the level of worry that we have, our concern for the stability of this environment."

This vanishing of sea ice also contributes to the region's warming, as the icy white expanse is replaced by patches of dark water that absorb solar radiation rather than reflecting it back out of the atmosphere.

The process, referred to as Arctic amplification, helps to explain why the Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the world over the last four decades.