Knowtex

A review of Antarctic climate change forecasts that by 2100 the world's seas will have risen to levels previously thought too extreme to be realistic!

Changes in Arctic sea ice coverage from 1978 to 2008 developed by Ignatius Rigor at the University of Washington, Seattle Applied Physics Lab. Pulses depict the annual expansion and contraction of the sea ice from winter to summer. Red dots represent the buoys that measure the ice

Arctic sea ice has declined slightly less dramatically this year than in the past couple of years. But the seasonal minimum, reached this week, is still the third-lowest on record since satellite radar measurements began.

This summer, a group of scientists and students set out from Resolute Bay, Canada, on the icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent. They were headed through the Northwest Passage, and combined satellites and submarines datas to piece together a history of ice thickness during the last 50 years.

Sea ice is often used as an indicator for man-made climate change, so find out what it is and why it is important.