Just a little tangent here, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) just reported that they were underestimating the level of arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers).
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/021809.html That's a lot of ice to just miss, isn't it? They're blaming it on satellite problems and sensor drift.
Tara
ps, just for reference, the state of California is 163,707 square miles and the nation of France is 211,207 square miles.
Size of the states of the US
