Do we have time for another record while Arctic sea ice records are falling around us like ripe plums? I guess we'll have to make time.

When considering the impact of climate change on polar regions, the star of the show has always been Arctic sea ice.  Playing supporting roles are the Greenland ice cap and Antarctica.

Yet one actor in the drama remains badly overlooked: the snows that cover our Northern continents.

In June 2012, for instance, it was reported that Northern Hemisphere Land Snow Cover had broken a record.

The June snow anomaly was the lowest figure for June in the whole 45 year record, besting the previous record set in 2010 by 1 million square kilometres.

It is only with analysis of the changing anomaly through the year that the true drama of the declining snow cover can be seen.

At the height of this summer's melt, 2012 was 8.5 million sq kilometres ahead of the 1972-1979 average.

This is a full month advance in the melt over a 27 year period.

Another way of visualising this early melt is that the average snow limit at the height of the melt season is now a whole 500 miles further North than it was 27 years ago.