This winter in the Arctic has been dramatically different from the season we've experienced so far much of the central and eastern U.S., and it's fueling an equally dramatic debate within the scientific community about climate change and whether global warming is playing a role – or not.
Across the Great Lakes, striking images have been captured of near-record amounts of ice covering the lakes' surface, especially in places like Lake Superior's Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, whose majestic shoreline ice caves opened recently for the first time in five years.
Nearly 90 percent of the Great Lakes has been covered in ice thanks to this year's bitterly cold winter, a number that's up dramatically from last year's ice cover maximum of 38.4 percent and way up from 2012's cover, which reached a maximum of just 12.9 percent.
But in the Arctic, ice amounts have followed the opposite trajectory as this winter has brought record low amounts of sea ice, the kind that grows and retreats seasonally every year in response to warming (or cooling) air and ocean temperatures.
On Feb. 18 – during the month when it normally reaches its highest amount for the year – Arctic sea extent measured about 8.93 million square miles, down roughly 7,000 square miles from the previous record low for the same date since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s.
Much warmer-than-normal Arctic temperatures are believed to be the main cause, as temperatures during the first half of February ranged from 7.2 to 14.4°F above average across the polar region.
read more at: http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/why-arctic-sea-ice-record-low-great-lakes-ice-record-high-20140223
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