Extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s -- and not warmer temperatures of recent years -- are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say. It may have happened more than a decade ago, but the sea ice appears to still "remember" those Arctic Oscillation conditions, according to Ignatius Rigor, a mathematician with the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory and a presenter at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting this week in San Francisco. The...