A couple of fwd links to Arctic ice updates and currently visible spacecraft in the night sky

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

Has near-daily updates on how the arctic ice is doing. Not so well at the moment.

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/

lists the brighter spacecraft visible from your suburb over the next few days (click on the 'global flybys'). Since the international space station can reach magnitude -3 (brighter than anything normally seen except the sun, moon, and occasionally Venus) it's easy to see even in the cities.