Climate scientists put predictions to the test

A study has found that climate-prediction models are good at forecasting long-term climate patterns on a global scale but lose their edge when applied to time frames shorter than three decades and on smaller geographic scales. The goal of the research was to bridge the communities of climate scientists and weather forecasters, who sometimes disagree with respect to climate change.

The frozen cap of the Arctic Ocean appears to have reached its annual summertime minimum extent and broken a new record low on Sept. 16, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has reported. Analysis of satellite data showed that the sea ice extent shrunk to 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers).