Historically, Arctic sea ice lasted not only over one summer but often over several years. Charles Fowler, head of a team of scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, reported that thicker ice that is able to last for two or more years now only makes up 10% of the ice cover. That's down from 30% to 40% in the 1980s and 1990s.

A little more than a year ago, the a new 3-D application called that enables users to interact with scientific data and visualize events like climate change and polar melting in real time.

Using data collected from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, people, for instance, can track storms in real time or track how increasing temperatures at the polar ice caps threaten to raise sea levels.