Climate scientists and science reporters are buzzing about a new graph showing data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which gives a unexpectedly bleak portrait of current sea ice area at the poles.

The conversation around the graph has been heated at times, and gives those with a casual interest in science a window into how controversial data gets analyzed and presented. While the science you learned in school might seem mostly fixed, the science of today is still a nerdy battleground.

The graph shows the amount and spread of ice on the surface of the ocean, called global “sea ice area” by scientists, dipping far lower than the established trends would have predicted. For most of 2016, you can see that global sea ice area was…

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