Antonio Ruiz de Elvira

In three to six years, the first ice-free day in the Arctic could occur if a series of extreme weather events - such as an unusually warm autumn, winter and spring in the region - occur, according to a study comparing various models and scenarios in Nature Communications. An ice-free day refers to a day with Arctic Ocean ice coverage of less than 1 million square kilometres; the average coverage was 6.85 million square kilometres between 1979 and 1992.

New estimates published in Science claim that under the most optimistic scenarios, glaciers will globally lose much more mass and contribute more to sea level rise than current estimates, including those published in the latest IPCC report.

The weekend saw record temperatures in both the Arctic and Antarctica, up to 40°C above normal for this time of year.