Low pressure in the arctic

"The Arctic is pretty warm everywhere. If I look at temperature anomalies, there's a huge anomaly over the Barents Sea and Sea of Okhotsk of about 10C (above normal) compared to 1981-2010," said Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Boulder, Colorado.

"The WMO assessment coincides with exceptionally warm air and waterthis month in the Arctic. The sea ice, that forms and melts each year, would normally be still growing strongly in mid-February, but has dramatically slowed in the last two weeks and now covers 14.36 million square miles – the lowest extent ever recorded in February.

We are living in a time where the climate is changing quite rapidly. There is reason to expect that the changes in the sea ice will have large local effects. Further investigation will improve our knowledge of whether or not the effects of sea ice decline and broader changes in the Arctic have global effects," said leading US meteorologist Jeff Masters.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/25/world-2014-extreme-weather-events