April 18-May 3 Sea Ice Decline in km square + percent of Arctic SIE peak.
2010 -828,125 lost -5,75%
2009 -529,531 lost -3,67%
2008 -503,125 lost -3,47%
2007 -406,094 lost -2,92%
2006 -812,656 lost -5,90%
2005 -548.906 lost -3,89%
2004 -496.406 lost -3,47%
2003 -743.437 lost -5,01%

Looks like 2010 is a record speed decline in absolute km square and 2nd in % decline from peak, just when that copper plow came above the horizon.

A closer look
While NSIDC primarily uses the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) sensors to track long-term conditions, we also look at data from higher-resolution sensors to assess current conditions in more detail. An image from NASA’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) sensor from April 19 reveals numerous polynyas , or areas of open water in the pack ice in the Bering Sea, and broad areas of more scattered ice cover in the Sea of Okhotsk, Barents Sea, and Hudson Bay. Such conditions usually indicate that ice is about to retreat rapidly. Over much of the coastline in this image, there is an indication of low-concentration sea ice. This is an artifact of mixed pixel areas, which contain both water and land. The same effect is seen occasionally in the SSM/I record.

For more information about the satellites NSIDC uses to track sea ice, see the Arctic Sea Ice News Frequently Asked Questions Web page.

Here is a a good link--- http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22782

The Crisis of Scientific Illiteracy
Climate change, the energy crisis, global pandemics, nuclear proliferation—many of the most urgent problems of the twenty-first century require science-based solutions. Yet Americans are paying less and less attention to scientists. For every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunken by two-thirds over the past several decades. Just 18 percent of Americans personally know a scientist to begin with, and exceedingly few can name a living scientist role model. No wonder rejection of science is rampant: 46 percent of Americans deny evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old; large numbers of Republicans continue to attack the science of climate change; and the public—including its wealthiest and best educated sectors—is in dangerous retreat from childhood vaccinations.

The disconnect between the scientific community and mainstream American culture grows wider every day.

No idea what that birth certificate tangent has anything to do with climate or environment or how to make electricity in ways that do not harm the world we live in. We, representing the other 96% of the planets population visit and participate in this thread to discuss maybe things how it came that oil companies lobbied the past administrations and parliaments to have WORLDWIDE economic damage caused by their business due oil spills is capped at 75 million US? Now that had me wonder and am sure Bueller has an answer to that.

BUT, what is of far greater concern is that wheat has lost 8% of it's nutritious value due increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, just trace as DA ad nauseam has been repeating [it's still 38% from 280 ppmv to 390 ppmv].

Like orange trees need frosty spells in order to do their cycle and be able to actually seed oranges, the news brings today that the nights are not cooling enough for Rice to grow properly. Now that affects billions of people.

Every time you turn your car on, and you burn fossil fuels and you put CO2 in the air, you're doing the work of the Lord, absolutely.

Sekhmet was represented as a lioness or as a woman with lion's head. Her weapons were arrows "with which she pierces hearts" and a fiery glow emanated from her body. The hot desert winds were regarded as the Goddess's hot breath. She was connected with the fire-spitting Uraeus of the King and thereby became the "Eye of Ra".