Last week the ice at the North Pole melted at an “unprecedented rate.” And that has some scientists worrying that the Arctic could become ice-free during the summers as early as 2013, the Guardian reports.

The storms over the Alaska’s Beaufort Sea last week brought with them not just bad weather but also streams of hot air into the Arctic. Satellite images that were taken shortly after could show that the ice caps had started to “disintegrate dramatically.” And because of that the scientists believes that the melting could exceed last year’s record loss of ice.

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The Caribbean monk seal has gone “the way of the dodo” and been officially listed as extinct by the US Government. The Caribbean monk seal is, so far, the only seal species to go extinct due to human causes.

“Humans left the Caribbean monk seal population unsustainable after overhunting them, Unfortunately, this led to their demise and labels the species as the only seal to go extinct from human causes.”

The last time anyone sighted the Caribbean monk seal was in 1952, over 50 years ago, at Seranilla Bank, between Jamaica and the Yucatan Peninsula. In 1967 the USA listed the species as endangered due to human activities.

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