The dramatic recent decline in Arctic sea-ice cover is illustrated in new data from Europe's Cryosat mission. The data currently consists of only a few years right now, so it's not possible to say if this is a trend or not. Importantly, however, it does reveal that winter ice growth is not compensating for the increasingly dramatic loss of summer ice that is now, unfortunately, a well established trend. Also, the big differences already detected by this mission points to a high variability of seasonal ice growth and loss, a variability that could be indicative of a system in transition. Read more here.