Aug. 31, 2007 — The Svalbard archipelago near the North Pole is already seeing the dramatic effects of global warming: the mercury is rising twice as fast as elsewhere on the planet, posing a serious threat to the ecosystem. The Arctic sea ice has never been as small as it is now. This year, it shrank to less than 1.93 million square miles — a grim record for the planet. "And there is still a month of melting in September," says an alarmed Nalan Koc, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's polar climate program. In Svalbard, a Norwegian territory twice...