Thanks to human-caused warming, an area of ice three times the size of Texas went missing this year

Arctic sea ice shriveled so much during this summer’s now-finished melt season that it has reached the second lowest extent on record.

A sensitive indicator of human-caused warming, the low extent of the region’s floating lid of ice effectively tied with 2007 and 2016 for second place in satellite records extending back 40 years, according to the National S