While satellites provide accurate and expansive coverage of ice in the Arctic Ocean, the records are relatively new. Satellites have only monitored sea ice extent since 1973. To extend the record, JPL scientist Ronald Kwok and Drew Rothrock of the University of Washington, Seattle, recently combined the high spatial coverage from satellites with a longer record from Cold War submarines to piece together a history of ice thickness that spans close to 50 years. Analysis of the new record shows that since a peak in 1980, sea ice thickness has declined 53 percent. The study, published online August 6 into Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the current thinning of Arctic sea ice has actually been going on for quite some time.
THEKKADY / KOCHI: A thick veil of grief descended on the famed tourist spot of Thekkady on Wednesday when Kerala witnessed its worst ever boat tragedy in the Mullaperiyar waters as the KTDC’s Jalakanyaka, carrying about 76 passengers, sank. Thirty five bodies have been fished out of the water. Any hope of finding more tourists alive faded with the daylight even as rescue personnel continued their desperate search. The two-deck boat, commissioned just a month back, was returning to the boat landing after an hour-long sight-seeing trip when tragedy struck. All the passengers on the upper deck apparently rushed to one side of the boat to take photos of a lone bison spotted on the shore. At the same time many from the lower deck flocked to the top leaving the lower almost empty. This movement and the uneven distribution of weight caused the boat to overbalance and turn turtle. Those remaining on the lower deck were trapped inside while about 20 on the upper deck were rescued by other boa
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