So, 2012 is now officially the hottest year ever recorded in the US. It brought a record breaking drought, registering the hottest month ever and leading to record breaking grain prices and record breaking crop insurance fees. 2012 also produced super storm Sandy, which led to record breaking low pressure in the US Northeast and record breaking storm surges hitting New York City.

 

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:

Did you know that Greenpeace broke a Facebook record this week? The international environmental organization got the most comments ever on a Facebook post in 24 hours–80,000! And that was after setting a goal of 50,000. The comments came in all different languages from around the world, all on Greenpeace's "Unfriend Coal" page.

 

Greenpeace launched the record-setting drive as a way to step up its pressure on Facebook. The company still relies on coal to power its data centers and some of its other operations, and Greenpeace has been calling on Facebook to go coal-free for more than a year. Now they're urging the social networking company to achieve that goal by Earth Day 2011 on April 22nd. Facebook, for its part, has been making efforts to change its data centers into cleaner, more green-friendly operations.

 

The "Unfriend Coal" campaign is ongoing, so you can check it out and see if you want to take part!