I answered Q5 Why is the Arctic experiencing the largest warming on Earth? correctly but I feel it is something of a simplification. The loss of sea ice is clearly a driver of what Prof. Peter Wadhams refers to as the Arctic ice death spiral. However, something must kick-start the process that results in the initial loss of sea ice.
The recent paper The central role of diminishing sea ice in recent Arctic temperature amplification (Screen & Simmonds 2010) which I found via Skeptical Science goes into more detail. The full paper is available here.
In the past, I had the good fortune to hear a talk about sea ice by Prof. Grae Worster. Unfortunately, I forget the details but there is a great deal of complexity in something as simple as the freezing of salty water! There is a paper here and here is the remarkable 'Brinicle' ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15835017.
I attended two talks on climate change this week: "Climate Change and Migration", Alex Randall, Climate Outreach Information Network and and the third in the Adaptation to climate change seminar series by Professor Charlie F Kennel. The latter referred to http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr196.pdf. Short Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) were discussed as a short term adaptation strategy and to refresh the stale climate dialogue centred on carbon.
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