Records are being shattered:
After a record-breaking 2015 – declared the hottest year on record – it’s no surprise that 2016 began on the same wave.
January 2016 was the hottest month in the Arctic’s recorded history, and the region’s sea ice has taken the largest loss, reaching a record low for the month of February.
Recent reports from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) note that the Arctic is missing a mass of sea ice that’s 1,160,000 square kilometres -- more than half the size of the Prairies. The missing sea ice was calculated in comparison to the 1981-2010 long-term average.