Arctic sea ice set a record low this part month. Which doesn’t bode well for the minimum expected later this summer:
This winter’s freezing season in the Arctic is falling short. The extent of Arctic sea ice this week is hovering near record-low values for early February, based on observations that extend back to the start of satellite monitoring in 1979. Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that last month had the lowest overall Arctic sea ice extent of any January in the satellite record. As detailed in an NSIDC report on Thursday, the total extent of 13.53 million square kilometers (5.2 million square miles) was 1.04 million sq km below the 1981-2010 average and 90,000 sq km below the record from January 2011.
- I know you’re going to love the fact that 14 new species of tarantula have been named in the US. That includes one named for Johnny Cash!
- Some say the Earth and moon are really more like a binary planet system (Pluto and Charon definitely are). But the Earth by its lonesome is already two planet’s worth of stuff.
- Speaking of Pluto, frozen nitrogen doesn't act like frozen water, it’s alive, in that acts more like cold honey. Even on the edge of the solar system a scant few dozen degrees above absolute zero, it moves, it flows, and convects and big steely water-ice mountains bob up and down in it over eons.