Winter has been warmer than average

WASHINGTON - Winter storms and snow notwithstanding, this winter was still warmer than average worldwide, the government reported Thursday.

Salmon fishing ban possible this year

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Federal fisheries managers took the first step Friday toward imposing what could be the strictest limits ever on West Coast salmon fishing amid a collapse of the central California chinook salmon fishery.

Marine scientists blame an unusual weather pattern that triggered a collapse of the marine food web in 2005, the year most of this year's returning adults were entering the ocean as juveniles.

Arctic sea ice builds, but vulnerable

WASHINGTON - Critical Arctic sea ice this winter made a tenuous partial recovery from last summer's record melt, federal scientists said Tuesday. But that's an illusion, like a Hollywood movie set, scientist Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said. The ice is very thin and vulnerable to heavy melting again this summer.

Thickest, oldest Arctic ice is melting: NASA data

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting, a bad sign for the future of the Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite data showed on Tuesday.