Arctic's peak ice cover has shrunk by an area larger than Egypt

Sea ice covered 5.64 million square miles of the Arctic Ocean at the ice's peak extent this year in early March. That's almost 400,000 square miles less than the median coverage level at other March peaks between 1981 and 2010, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. The reduction is equivalent to an area larger than Egypt.