Arctic Sea Ice - More Bad News

Although it's been a particularly cold winter (thanks to a strong La Nina system in the Pacific), arctic ice is thinner and younger than ever before (no surprise, since we had a record melt last summer).

According to Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, as ice ages it continues to grow and thicken, so that older ice is generally also thicker ice. This winter the ice cover is much thinner overall and thus in a more vulnerable state heading into the summer melt season.

"It's becoming thinner and thinner and much more susceptible to melting during the summer - much more likely to melt away. It may look OK on the surface, but it's like looking at a Hollywood movie set - you see the facade of a building and it looks OK, but if you look behind it, there's no building there," said Meier.