“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Mark Serreze, who directs NOAA'S National Snow and Ice Data Center. “It’s way below the previous record, very far below it, and we’re something like almost a month ahead of where we were in 2012,” which was the previous all-time low sea ice extent for the month of May. The ice loss is being driven by the astonishingly high temperatures in the Arctic this past winter, and “that warmth has persisted through spring, and so we’re in a bad way right now,” Serreze said. (Click to enlarge)