Hi DaymD, this is Stefan from Norway. I was out sampling on the Norwegian island Svalbard/ Spitzbergen, which is in the high Arctic and I was also part of a cruise going to the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. During these times I have seen a few "dire" situations directly. This was mostly trash in the ocean and on the island. But this is probably not the "dire situation" you look for. In terms of climate change, this is pretty hard to see, especially if you only go once. When we went out on the Barents Sea, the sea ice was fairly far North. This means, it was a year with low total sea ice. But is that an effect of climate change? It could also be an anomaly of this particular year. So only by talking to the captain and the older scientists on board, who all had been there a few times over the last years and decades, revealed that the ice used to be further South. That is an indicator, but it is also what we call "anecdotal evidence". This means, single people saw something, but did not measure it scientifically. So in the end, we need to go back to sea ice charts and models and check what really happens over a long time to actually see the effect of climate change. But if we do, yes, there is less ice in the Arctic. A similar example would be glaciers, where you can see where the have been 10-20-30 years back and measure the decline. Glacier Gray in Patagonia (Chile) is a good example here. I hope that answers your question.