The Gazette: Worst retreat of arctic sea ice in thousands of years

A major international study of Arctic sea ice has concluded that the recent, record-setting retreat is the worst in thousands of years -- a conclusion that challenges skeptics' claims that the meltdown being witnessed in Canada's North is probably just the latest low ebb in a historical cycle of ice loss and regeneration. The new study, involving 18 scientists from five countries and to be published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, includes data from two Canadian co-authors who interpret historic levels of ice cover from ancient whalebones found throughout the polar region. Other evidence marshalled in the bid to reconstruct ancient Arctic climate conditions include patterns of driftwood deposit and chemical signatures in seabed sediments and ice cores… The two Canadian scientists involved in the study - Geological Survey of Canada researcher Arthur Dyke and McGill University archaeologist James Savelle - provided data about the distribution of whalebone deposits, primarily from bowhead whales, to help map the extent of Arctic ice cover over the past 10,000 years.