We've Probably Lost a Few Elves Already:

That's the North Pole up there where the lines converge in that picture, where we tell our children that Santa Claus lives with a bunch of elves. The elves are either immortal or have elf sex in order to keep Santa's workshop supplied with workers. Crazy elf orgies. Think about that when your Elf on a Shelf is watching you get undressed.

The white stuff surrounding the North Pole is Arctic sea ice. The orange line indicates the median extent of the sea ice in the years 1979-2000. In other words, a not-insignificant amount of ice is just gone, children, gone.

It gets even jollier for the fat man. See, the problem isn't the air temperature. Oh, no. That's been "unremarkable" over the last decade. It means that record ice melt is because of some days are warmer than others. It's because the water is warmer. And that means Santa is well and truly fucked.

According to NOAA, in the last year alone, there's been a record growing season, the longest duration of Greenland ice sheet melting, record low snow one month, record low sea ice, and, of course, indications that the total melting will go much faster than previously estimated.

While our politicians don't care or act on any of this, you can bet that Santa gives a damn about science at this point or he'd better learn to balance on top of that candy cane-striped pole while he watches a red glowing nose fade as its owner sinks into the Arctic sea.