Some 97 percent of Greenland's ice sheet is melting, according to NASA satellite data, an amount that is "unprecedented." Normally, about half of Greenland's ice shows signs of melting during the summer, but between July 8 and 12 of this year the melt extended across the entire land mass. "For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations," said NASA researchers. The melt follows the breaking off of a chunk of ice twice the size of Manhattan earlier this month. NASA said that it has yet to determine whether this will affect the overall volume of ice loss or the sea level rise, though globally around one-fifth of sea rise experienced is due to the melting of the ice sheet. The University of Reading recently led a study indicating that at least 70 percent of the radical decline in sea ice near the Arctic is due to human-induced climate change, and the actual figure may be closer to 95 percent. For the full story on the ice sheet, see http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/97-of-greenland-ice-sheet-melting-20120725-22pue.html. For the story on the Arctic sea, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/26/arctic-climate-change.