Arctic ice-scape

Can I persuade you that I flew over the Arctic sea ice this morning and saw this white, almost featureless, landscape stretching away for hundreds of miles...? Sadly, I was not able to do this. My more intimate experience was looking at the car roof this morning! This was our first really cold morning, leading to a number of collisions on the country roads in the area. By mid-morning the frost and icy patches had all gone and, by a strange coincidence, I opened an email about serious concerns about the shrinking Arctic sea ice!