Christian Science Monitor: Earth`s crisp white skullcap of Arctic sea ice is emerging from winter much the worse for wear. Scientists monitoring the ice`s annual growth and contraction say the frigid sheath ended winter with the fifth-smallest geographic reach since 1979, when satellites first began tracking sea-ice trends. All six below-average winters have occurred between 2004 and 2009. This year, winter ice also enters a new melt season with record-low levels of thick older ice, the kind that has has …