U.S. government scientists have disclosed the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has melted to its smallest size ever, potentially signaling that the “worst-case scenario” of global warming is becoming a reality. The National Snow and Ice Data Center and the NASA space agency say the Arctic sea ice has dwindled to some 27,000 square miles less than the previous record set in 2007. The ice will likely continue to melt with several weeks of summer weather still to come. In a statement, government scientists said the melting of the Arctic sea ice “is considered a strong signal of long-term climate warming.” Speaking to Agence France-Presse, Michael Mann, the author of a major 2001 report on climate change and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said: “This is an example that points more to the worst-case scenario side of things. There are a number of areas where in fact climate change seems to be proceeding faster and with a greater magnitude than what the models predicted.”