<story><title>The Mystery of Extraordinarily Accurate Medieval Maps (2014)</title><url>http://discovermagazine.com/2014/june/14-the-mapmakers-mystery</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Supersaiyan_IV</author><text>And the mystery of how northern Canada and Northern Pole had a common shore.
Now rethink the amount of ice that has melted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mortehu</author><text>&amp;gt; northern Canada and Northern Pole had a common shore&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by this?  Doesn&amp;#x27;t it every year?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s this winter&amp;#x27;s maximum: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/seaice_max_2015_feb_25_overheadviewnoave_print.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;thumbnails&amp;#x2F;image&amp;#x2F;sea...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Mystery of Extraordinarily Accurate Medieval Maps (2014)</title><url>http://discovermagazine.com/2014/june/14-the-mapmakers-mystery</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Supersaiyan_IV</author><text>And the mystery of how northern Canada and Northern Pole had a common shore.
Now rethink the amount of ice that has melted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>duskwuff</author><text>That region was barely explored at the time -- the coastline in that area was probably based on observations from only a few voyages. (Given the harsh conditions up there, it&amp;#x27;s also likely that the observations were subject to more error than usual.) I wouldn&amp;#x27;t put too much stock into it.</text></comment>