Guardian: Al Gore says "business leaders see the writing on every wall they look at"

“he has also detected a shift in the view of many business leaders. “They’re seeing the writing on every wall they look at. They’re seeing the complete disappearance of the polar ice caps right before their eyes in just a few years,””
The argument that some scientists have made is for the disappearance of a permanent polar ice pack in the Arctic Ocean, that is to say in the summer sea ice may go, but no one is suggesting that winter ice pack may disappear.
The arctic ice pack has been measured as thinning for many decades, these measurements are based on nuclear submarine patrols during the cold war, the information only became declassified in the late 90s when it created a minor stir. (caveat emptor: Id guess the data is obviously very sparse) This has meant that the ice is more prone to melt and easier to push around with wind a currents. This change has meant that the ice can be flushed out through the Fram Straight, this was actually visible in the winter last year on one of the videos provided on the Cryosphere today site. The thinner ice melts easier; the exposed sea absorbs a great deal more heat taking it longer to refreeze in the winter. This is the process we have seen.
The 2007 melt season was exceptional in the extreme, its cause was a high pressure area over the pole during July that brought in warm air and kept the skies clear during the 24 hour days. 2008 did not quite have the same conditions but whether patterns did favor melting and it came damned close to the 2007 record.
The process may be self sustaining, an accumulation of heat in the ocean from lack of ice cover in the summer making it easier to melt each year, irrespective of whether solar forcing or AGW was the cause of recent heating. Thinner ice being more vulnerable to wind and currents etc…. (Note the word MAY).
Gore has misrepresented the opinions of the most alarmed scientists by not making it clear they are only discussing summer ice.
Prize to the first poster to mention the word “cult”?

Well, the Nobel seems to have lost some prestige in the last decade…
Why not award it to a bunch of readers/posters of a particular blog. Especially if they give a really cool presentation (facts not necessary).

Two words – Cognitive Dissonance.

Dorlomin ,
Summer at one pole means winter at the other one. There has been no change in polar sea ice area since satellite records began, as the UIUC graph shows.
The low Arctic minimum in 2008 was primarily due to a strong polar drift during the previous winter, which melted most of the multi-year ice before summer even arrived.
Interesting to note that Gore is using the AGW standard ad hominem attack on Lovelock.

Re: Aron (08:24:02)
“I just want to know how a guy who takes energy efficiency and environmentalism seriously gained so much weight in three years. What happened to his low carbon lifestyle?”
I’d like to see a statistical analysis of that. Hockey Stick indeed. 😉
Andrew

The James Lovelock reference is about Lovelock’s disbelief that carbon trading can make a difference:

Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true

As it happens, Lovelock believes that we are doomed by global warming to suffer a major die-off byt the end of the century, but at least he is honest about it.

Stephen Brown [083625]
In [slightly] falling order of hysteria and cognitive dissonance the UK media appear to rank as follows: 1] the Guardian [how couldn’t they with George “Moonbat Monbiot” as their in-house climate mumbo jumbo shaman…] , 2] the BBC [ who have an IV drip into Phil Jones and assorted institutionalized alarmist at HadCRU], 3] the Independent, and 4] the Times. The only daily to openly question the AGW/ACC party line on a regular basis is the Telegraph.

“James Lovelock has forgotten more about science than I will ever learn. “
So have 31,478 other scientists who have signed the Global Warming Petition Project, myself included. Then there are also millions upon millions of other folks whose education and common sense tells them AlGore is a pontifical cretin.
The socialists trade on fear. All religions trade on fear. I shan’t say more. It’s all been rehearsed here before and repetition is a waste of bandwidth when speaking to the choir.

Where is the actual data saying sea ice is thinning?
Here are some records going back to 1947 for Alert and Eureka, Canada – the two most northernly communities in the world. (this would be coastal sea ice versus polar pack ice but there should be a correlation.)
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3163/seaicethickness.png
The researchers who used the submarine data produced this chart of total sea ice volume (area times thickness) back to 1948 and there isn’t much long-term change in sea ice thickness that one can deduce from the chart. Just long-term cycles.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/IDAO/icevol_nao.gif

Fred, I would preface your challenge by taking into account Arctic current oscillations. As water flows in and out in various warm and cold, as well as fast and slow, currents, that have within them multi-year and decadal oscillations, that then mix with various fresh water melt sources, the Arctic’s ability to absorb heat from the Sun is variously impacted by these current characteristics. Arctic seas are anything but a stable pool of water and solar heating is a seasonal glancing blow at best, and a miss at worst. Okay, now figure thermodynamics.

The Guardian is taking on a shriller AGW tone these days – apparently due to the preponderance of cooling data flowing in. What is perplexing is to see an organization such as the Guardian Media Group succumb to barely disguised pressure from Gore. The Guardian has been recognized as a relatively bias-neutral paper. Owned by its founder’s The Scott Trust – their board claims a hands off management approach “as long as everything is going right.”
We would suggest the Board look into what’s not going right at the Guardian lately. Namely the unbalanced reporting of AGW. They might also cast a critical eye on the Guardian’s participation in “Project Syndicate” – a collective of 293 newspapers that funnels developed nations’ “commentaries and analysis” to those of less developed nations. A quick look at the Board of Overseers suggests one reason why AGW is such a big topic at the Guardian recently.
http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_Syndicate
Unfortunately, when the dust clears and good science has won the day – there will be an extraordinary amount of egg on the face of MSM and government grant recipients. Those who come forward now to provide even a modicum of media balance will suffer far worse than those that do not.

“The process may be self sustaining, an accumulation of heat in the ocean from lack of ice cover in the summer making it easier to melt each year, irrespective of whether solar forcing or AGW was the cause of recent heating.”
If it were that simple, all the ice would have melted millions of years ago and stayed that way ever since.