Wednesday Apocalypse Watch

First, a little mood music.

"We could very well be in that quick slide downward in terms of passing a tipping point," said senior scientist Mark Serreze at the data center in Boulder, Colo. "It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now."

NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally added that within "five to less than 10 years," the Arctic could be free of sea ice in the summer.

"It also means that climate warming is also coming larger and faster than the models are predicting, and nobody's really taken into account that change yet," he said. (courtesy, LA Times)