Eleanor Lutz, an designer and molecular biologist from Seattle has obviously a crush on the most beautiful butterflies. And because is absolutely unlikely to see all of them in one place at the very same time, she did an animated gif of 42 of the most adorable North American ones. On her website tabletopwhale.com she says that  she had “checked out six butterfly field guides from the library and picked out some of the species I thought were the most unique and beautiful.” The animation is meant as a chart of illustrations, she adds, rather than an educational infographic. However, the drawings seem very true to life.

Within this year’s summer period the arctic sea ice shield at the north pole melted dramatically to a new all-time low. The ice mass has fallen short of the record of 2007. And the low could get even lower, because the 2007 record was measured at 18 September. This year we saw the same record already in August. The ice usually melts until the mid of September and then starts again to grow during the winter period. But due to the large melting the new ice will be much thinner than usual. Scientists of the National Snow and Data Center explain that where have been an ice shield of a 3-4 meters just a few years ago, it’s possible to reach only 1-2 meters today. An ice free noth-pole could be the result, they say, followed by the irreversibility of the melting process. According to the Arctic Sea Ice Blog it’s just a question of when until we will see an ice free north pole.If you want to stay updated on that issue, there are lot’s of impressive and in somehow frightening opportunities. The picture on top of this post is provided by the Instituts for Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois. It’s going to be updated every day. So it will be possible to see the day the ice will be growing again. The website also offers a 30-day summary of the ice developement. You will also find tons of data about the planet’s ice shield’s via the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

But whats so bad about melting ice? Well, as Global Ideas Climate Expert Anders Levermann explained in one of his videos the arctic sea ice belongs to the earth’s tipping points. If the ice melts the dark ocean underneath will heat up and slowly melts even more ice. Here’s the video for you to see:

Global Ideas is on a hunt to find the basic answers to climate issues. That’s why we’ve come up with a series of information films where we want to explain complicated issues in a very simple and clear way. Here you can see the first episode. It raises the question: Does global warming really exist in light of the increasingly cold winters in Europe in recent years? We would like to read your comments! Start the discussion now!