Melting sea ice in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Jocelyn Michel / fStop / Getty Images
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Recent satellite data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that Antarctic sea ice extent is far below any level ever recorded.
The continent’s sea ice is an important regulator of Earth’s temperature by not only lowering the temperature of the water below, but also reflecting the sun’s rays back into the atmosphere.
“It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing,” Dr. Walter Meier, a sea ice monitor with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told BBC News.
Right now Antarctic sea ice is less than 17 million square miles, which…
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