An animation showing the extent of Arctic sea ice from this year’s maximum, on March 5, to this year’s minimum, on Sept. 15, with the 30-year average minimum in yellow. Video by Trent L. Schindler/NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio The Arctic continued its unwavering shift toward a new climate in 2020, as the effects of near-record warming surged across the region, shrinking ice and snow cover and fueling extreme wildfires, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region . Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska and one of the editors of the assessment, said it “describes an Arctic region that continues along a path that is warmer, less frozen and biologically changed in ways that were scarcely imaginable even a generation ago.” “Nearly everything in the Arctic, from ice and snow to human activity, is changing so quickly that there is no reason to […]