"…the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012"

No Mark, it’s you that’s screaming about the sky falling.

Here’s a few more:
Frightening’ projection for Arctic melt
The Arctic Ocean could be free of ice in the summer as soon as 2010 or 2015 – something that hasn’t happened for more than a million years, according to a leading polar researcher.
The frightening models we didn’t even dare to talk about before are now proving to be true,” Fortier told CanWest News Service, referring to computer models that take into account the thinning of the sea ice and the warming from the albedo effect – the Earth is absorbing more energy as the sea ice melts.
According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
“And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that,” said Fortier, who leads an international team of researchers in the Arctic looking for clues to climate change.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c76d05dd-2864-43b2-a2e3-82e0a8ca05d5&k=53683
—————————————————————————————————————
Too late to keep Arctic sea ice from vanishing?
‘It’s hard to see how the system may come back,’ expert says
Arctic sea ice next summer may shrink below the record low last year and it’s hard to see how it won’t eventually melt away completely, according to a University of Washington climatologist.
Have we passed the tipping point?” he asked. “It’s hard to see how the system may come back.”
The prospect of a mostly ice-free Arctic could mean a boom in shipping through the Bering Strait, several speakers said, but is bad news for polar bears and other animals.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23134090/#.T681KejpG5I

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts…

Since Obama told us that the border fence was ” basicaly done”, (5%) then if only 5% of the ice has melted by then, this will be true. It all depends on the definition of “nearly.”

IIRC, in 2008 Al Gore also predicted in Berlin that the Arctic would be ice-free in 2013.

“if the ice all melt… then the gas, will be released. from the ocean.
and we’ll all be poisoned!
by the gas….
from the ocean….
That’s a LOT of gas. Enough to kill everyone.”
HAHAHAHAHA!

Don’t forget Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize winning speech 10th Dec 2007. Ice free in as little as 7 years.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html
Not long now Al…

The hard edge of real data sems to be bain of the warmistas. Making scary predictions have many advantages. One is press coverage and the oher is government grants and another is tenure.
What is sad is that the fame, money, and tenure remain even when the scientific predictions are shown to be nonsense and entirely self-serving.
Thank goodness we are getting more and more data all the time. And, so long as it isn’t adjusted it will prove the alarmists false.

Just some guy 10:31pm:
That’s what I thought she said, so I listened again, and, although the accent’s difficult with all the background music, it does seem as though she thinks carbon-dioxide is poisonous. My God, we’ve got a lot of work to do!.

If the Arctic sea ice reflects 80% of the suns heat, how much does the Antarctic cap and sea ice reflect?

@ Rick K, May 12, 2012 at 9:32 pm: That. Was. Hilarious!

jsg;
Yep, gotta avoid that gas stuff! It’s so invisible and suffocating and all-blanketing and …
Oog. Trying to get into some people’s minds and POV is really a bad move. Stupefying, even.

According to David Suzuki it will be Ice Free (No Ice, None) not ‘Nearly Ice Free’ but flat out Ice Free, no qualifiers, No Ice at all, None, Nada, Zip, by the summer of 2013.
“Now, one sobering forecast is that the Arctic Ocean will be seasonally ice free by the summer of 2013.”
David Suzuki
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/arcticmeltdown/

The original statement is not “at the end of 2012 arctic will be ice free”, the statement is “at this rate (of decline), at the end of 2012 arctic will be ice free”. Now just a simple check of sea ice page reveals that the rate of decline did not stay, the decline slowed down drastically right during 2007 (but who could have seen it by then?) and while arctic ice is way under average of previous years, it’s more or less stable since 2007. So the rate of decline did not stay and using elementary logic, the statement “if A then B” is true either if both A and B are true, or if A is false – which is this case. The original statement is true because the assumption it is based on did not come to be true.

As I keep saying: The globe can be getting warmer or colder, but the idea that the human contribution from burning carbon fuels has anything to do with it is not only IMHO the biggest political and intellectual fraud ever – but so says the IPCC itself: http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html.
The ongoing discussion pro and con is becoming akin to the scholastic argument as to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle. Which is, of course, exactly what is intended, to achieve worldwide disorientation away from the actual IPCC aims of their monetary and energy policies – and bringing a whole discipline, if not all, of science into disrepute in the process. Even the UK Royal Society has become Lysenkoist.
That’s not to belittle the effort by thousands of scientists fighting for the truth in climate research, but I dismay over the practical effect of diverting all this brain power in a direction not at all relevant to the IPCC’s actual and declared political and financial intentions – or more importantly: away from the actual work that needs doing.
All IMHO, of course. My musings for what they may be worth on my various blogsite entries, and at http://www.lmhdesign.co.uk/sustainability.php and the Planet page on that website.

Please note, to falsify Dr. Mark Serreze’s prediction it is not enough to show in late September, 2012, that “the Arctic Ocean has in fact not become nearly ice-free”, but you will have to prove a vastly stronger proposition, which is “the Arctic Ocean could not have been nearly ice-free by now under any circumstances”. Tergiversation rulez.

I won’t be holding my breath about Arctic sea ice disappearing in the next four months. I’ll be breathing in and out as always, discharging my fair share of carbon dioxide. In the meantime for the next couple of months starting in June, I’ll be visiting up in the Great Midwest, in order to (hopefully) beat the Texas heat.

“Nearly”
It’s always nearly gone.

Did you hear the one about the climate scientist that cried polar bear?

Its just like religious doomsday predictors, they calculate a “the end is nigh” date and when the day comes and nothing happens they just say they got the calculations wrong and then give you an alternare date for the event.
With the exception of the admitting that an error was made of course.

“There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment,” says Serreze. “This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year.”
After the due date had past in 2008 I sent him an email regarding this and his response was we were wrong.
The only thing that will be lacking in Sept 2012 is already lacking now and it is simply his Organisations credibility.
But hey some people will do anything to get noticed 🙂
There was a young man called serreze
Who’s jumpers were knitted from Polar Bears
Which were very nice and allowed him to skate on thin ice.
Sorry for the doggerel 🙁

There is a lot of talk about wiggle room in the words used in the prognostications. Not only does that make them worthless as predictions, but imagine if the Arctic were ice free this summer !!
There would be no talk about wiggle room from the catastrophists then, it will become cast iron science based predictions that prove the models came down from mt. Sinai on tablets of stone

Yogi Berra quotes which apply:
1. It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
2. The future ain’t what it used to be.
3. If you don’t know where your going, you might end up someplace else.

Science is really going down hill. Do people like Serreze realize, or care, that they are lowering the standing of all scientists involved in the study of the climate, the atmosphere, the oceans, etc? Will Serreze at least publicly admit his scaremongering mistake, just as he quite publicly made an unqualified projection of gloom? I challenge him to do so.

Good article. I would not, though, use phrasing like “the elders of science” as that plays into the hands of some environmentalists who like to pretend to the public they are synonymous with science for the sake of the giant appeal to authority which is the bedrock of the CAGW movement. Like the Peter Gleick affair highlighted, they like to pretend to the public that their opponents are anti-science, when rather we skeptics support science. Real science is objective, honest advancement of human knowledge, and, of course, Anthony Watts, we both know how much (or not!) that applies to the CAGW movement.*
*(E.g. depicting http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/arctic-sea-ice-coverage-anomaly.jpg when the real history was rather http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif and as seen in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/02/cache-of-historical-arctic-sea-ice-maps-discovered/ ).
There are many cases where the phrase “scientists say” in much media could be better replaced with “some environmentalists claim.” By now, some institutions have reached the point where the only individuals likely to try getting employment at such as a career are those who know they would have no qualms about maintaining the party line, and accordingly they have become dominated by environmentalist ideologues rather than real scientists.
I was just noticing the preceding in another context, nominally much different but part of the same general anti-growth ideological movement. I was recently reading a claim of “some scientists now believe that a ‘peak phosphorus’ will occur in 30 years” where the writers were implying science concludes such, when rather it is some environmentalists playing to mathematically illiterate ignorant audiences. (Such is actually an absurdity: Beyond the 71 billion tons of phosphorus reserves already inventoried according to an USGS estimate for extraction at about exactly current market prices, already hundreds of times current 0.2 billion tons/year global consumption, there is a practically unlimited amount of intermediate ores between such and the roughly around 30 million billion tons of phosphorus in Earth’s 3 * 10^19 ton crust at an average concentration of ~ 0.1%, where, for perspective, typical vegetation is only 0.03% to 0.2% phosphorus).
Science used to be synchronous –and still should be– with an unsaid vision of supporting real technological progress for advancement and expansion of the material prosperity of mankind, of promoting a positive future. Some major segments of the environmentalist movement, including those making CAGW claims (as well as many other anti-growth memes and falsehoods), are trying to make science synchronous in the public consciousness with a dystopian vision of the future. Only then would most people come to believe in their vision: one of encouraging and eventually enforcing “lower material consumption,” “lower energy consumption” (the long-winded phrases used to pretend not to say poverty), with the hardcore ideologues at heart against space colonization, etc.

Can’t find who said this (Einstein?) but it’s apposite…
‘When the experts are united in a point of view the layman would do well to believe that the opposite point of view may be mistaken.’
And it applies a fortiori when the experts have a political agenda.

A message from Antarctica…
“Hey, what about me? I’ve been gaining sea ice above normal for soooo long, and nobody cares. Hellooo??? You know, it’s always the Arctic, Arctic, Arctic!! When am I gonna gets some props? Sheeesh…”

Borenstein (the gullible)— again !!
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me !! “

Have I mentioned lately, that a PhD recall provision is desparately needed? I would now extend this to the need for an accreditation program like the P.Eng program for engineers, for any scientist being a recipient of (at a minimum) public grant funds for research, and for a removal of any employer as a grant administrator if any scientist in their employ loses their “P.Sc” by virtue of what effectively is academic fraud. While it’s important to maintain the realm of objectivity and freedom for science, it appears necessary, in the absence of actual objectivity and the presence of ethical failure, to begin the process to expunge those who cannot, or more egregiously, will not, embrace the necessary rigour that good science demands.

Now, now. To be fair, he never really defined what “could be nearly ice-free” means. For example, a 95% cover could be “nearly” I suppose.
/snark

Making “accurate” predictions certainly helps your career
“Mark Serreze is the director of NSIDC. In 2009, he succeeded Dr. Roger Barry, who retired from the post in 2008 after 31 years of service. Serreze, a senior research scientist at NSIDC since 2005, is also a full professor in the University of Colorado at Boulder Geography Department, and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He studies Arctic climate, and the causes and global implications of climate change in the Arctic. Serreze is well known for his research on the declining sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean.”
http://nsidc.org/about/people.html
If you assume your research is solely on “declining ice cover”, how open will you be to objectively evaluating what is happening in the Arctic. He now has control over of those obtaining and analyzing the data and reporting the data.
We have to watch the Watchers.

May I recomment to people the following
http://www.ec.gc.ca/glaces-ice/default.asp?lang=En&n=CEC7AE99-1
This gives detailed ice conditions in the Canadian Arctic. Last year the data started on 15th May. I think it might be worthwhile explaining why we only provide data for a short period of time; 6 months.
One of the important jobs of the Canadian icebreakers is to escort cargo ships supplying heavy goods to ports in the Canadian Arcitc. The season, and our resources, are both limited, so it is essential that the work be done with maximum efficiency. The planning process for 2012 is just beginning, so Environment Canada deploys the resources needed to get the detailed ice data about now. This process culminates in a supply convey getting the furthest north we go; Eureka in early September. So we only collect the data for 6 monhs of the year. However, this does cover the iconic NorthWest Passage.

Kaboom says:
May 13, 2012 at 5:31 am
It seems obvious to me that all post-Rio climate conferences should be held on a cruise ship at the north pole. In years when it cannot get there due to ice, we skip it.
Ohhhh, nonononono, the conferences are too vital to the health of Mama Gaia — when the ice prevents the ship from getting there, we drop them off on the edge and they can walk.
Guided, of course, by Pen Hadow…

The detector or means for ascertaining the arctic anomaly on the linked page are obviously broken, starting in 2012. Note that in one of your figures, the 2012 data exhibits some four sharp downward spikes that aren’t apparent in the data of any other year. These spikes are clearly non-physical — for one thing ice doesn’t melt that suddenly, nor does it refreeze that suddenly, not on a sufficiently large basis to produce spikes like that, not several times in one year and not in any of the other years. Just thought you’d like to know.
rgb

It is ice free in some models, which is a terrible tragedy for all those simulated polar bears and seals. Don’t worry, in the next round of models we’ll find new, previously un-modelled parameters to consider which will knock today’s modelled temperatures and catastrophes back into line with observation, while retaining the carefully fitted hind-cast curves. This way the inevitable lapse into thermogeddon will be pushed back a few years, at least until more new factors can be implemented to explain why it has not happened yet. It’s only a matter of refinement, increased resolution and more money, see. Most importantly, more money. Models are very costly to run, especially when you need lots of runs of them to average together (smooths out out the unsightly bumps which people might mistake for incorrectly modelled natural variability).
JB, UK MET office..

Its always important to remember what has been predicted by the elders of science

I think you do real scientists a grave disservice by mentioning them in the same breath.

bsk says:
May 13, 2012 at 5:02 am
“You should link this in the article for posterity, Serezze now says ice free by 2030.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/16/266463/arctic-ice-at-record-low-nsidc-director-serreze-ice-free-summer-by-2030-downward-spiral/?mobile=nc
Nice.
Dr. Serezze has gone from death spiral to downward spiral so that’s good news, right? Possibly over the next couple of years, we will then hear about ice spiral from cyclonic wind and ocean currents which of course will be ignored by the headline seeking media; and the (pseudo) scientists will have effectively backed off from their attention-whore relationship with MSM. And none too soon.
So: Death Spiral to Downward Spiral to Ice Spiral. You heard it here first.

‘Elders of science’
Invoking Lovecraft?

You know his statement WAS correct :”At this rate. . . . ” At that rate, ice WOULD melt by 2012 — a FACTUAL statement. Another factual statement is that most WUWT bloggers are incapable of understanding simple English.

Looking at the sea ice reference page I have a question – Why haven’t the anomaly charts been updated for over a month now?

Julienne Stroeve, once told me she would consider anything less than 1 million sq km…….ice free
That’s the size of Egypt….
…or the size of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas combined
or 2/3 the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico
If that’s what they consider ice free………………………………

JJB MKI says:
May 13, 2012 at 6:30 am
It is ice free in some models, which is a terrible tragedy for all those simulated polar bears and seals. …
Love It!
Headlines:
NYT:
(New York) MASS EXTINCTION OF ARCTIC DENIZENS LIKELY ACCORDING TO MODEL STUDIES BY Andrew Revvedup
Scientists today have reported that mass extinctions of modelled populations of polar bears are likely according to the latest climate models run with modelled estimates of populations based on varying numbers of modelled polar bears. “The average “mean polar bear” doesn’t have the proverbial chance of a snowball in hell of being able to survive our climate models”, says lead researcher, Gavin Hansen-Serreze. Prof. Hansen-Serreze was asked how his models compared to direct observtions from the arctic regions, but he didn’t see that the question was relevant. “The beauty of modelling in the modern computer age is that you can now exactly reproduce what will happen in nature, its causes and solutions, without ever leaving your office. Isn’t science wonderful? “, he stated. Prof. Hansen-Serreze was interviewed on his way to Washington to lobby for more resources to study the imminent extinction of modelled arctic fauna.
Guardian:
{London) WORLD WILDLIFE FUND DEMANDS END TO MASS EXTINCTIONS PREDICTED BY CLIMATE MODELS, ANNOUNCES MAJOR CORPORATE FUNDRAISER.
Prince Charles, patron, announced that he will spearhead another campaign on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund is order to raise money from institutional and corporate donors, to further the work needed to prevent the mass extinctions of modelled polar bear populations in arctic regions. Palace officials also indicated Charles would be making a tour of commonwealth nations later this year to raise the spectre of the demise of modelled arctic fauna with school students, and encourage them to bring home how important these modelled populations are to the delicate balance of the world’s ecosystems. The WWF would be sending along donation boxes to be given to schools with along with a poster of “Mr. White”, the average mean polar bear, who is the representative bear used as the proxy for all bears in the climate model extinction scenarios. Charles was photographed today in Piccadilly Circus alongside a large stuffed caricature of Mr. White. When asked about the campaign, Charles explained, “its extremely important to the world that these mass extinctions do not occur.” ” We can’t afford to lose even a single Mr. White. Mum agreed that it would be best that I get about and see what could be done, especially, away from London”, he said.
Ha!

I think the only “death spiral” going on around here is my receding hairline.

“The Arctic is screaming,”
Indeed it is. I can hear the Arctic screaming “Serreze is an exaggerating alarmist and a poor scientist!” lol

Cuba lies is a fool.
any five year old can make a prediction that will be 100% accurate, whilst being 100% useless
‘tomorrow it will either rain, or it will not’
a totally useless prediction, which is why we don’t put 5 year olds in charge of climate science
wait……..

Wait for it, J.Z. will claim typos, mis-quoting, and being mis-understood. As follows:
At this rate, the Atlantic Ocean could be fairly ice-free at the end of summer by 2021, faster than previous warnings.

” The Arctic is screaming” I love that scaremonger doozie.
I get a lot of satisfaction from these dud predictions. The pickings will only get richer.
Thanks A.

Ok, in case some missed it in my “headlines” post ….. /sarc …..

Antbones,
. So why didn’t he say “could not be”?
Equally valid when dealing with conjecture. Conjecture can never be incorrect until such time comes that the conjecture refers to. Then it can damn sure be wrong.
“Could” is akin to “will” when making conjecture.

Caruba-lies says:
May 13, 2012 at 7:28 am
You know his statement WAS correct :”At this rate. . . . ”
>>>>>>>>>>
The implication made by Serreze was clear. His intent was to convey the message that:
1. If the current rate continues, blah, blah, blah (bad things will happen)
2. The current rate is due to human CO2 emissions
3. We must do something about CO2 emissions in order to curb the rate
Attempting after the fact to suggest his prediction carried scientificaly valid caveats is a sad and pathetic attempt to re-write history to make it compatible with the present.

Heartland should have used failed predictions for its billboards.

You are confusing the speculations of one scientist with a scientific consensus.

Harold Ambler I shouldn’t worry
We have Al on record 10th Dec 2007 saying with customary dramatic pause “7 years from now” like it was a certainty. The inevitable doom.

Roll on 2014 when the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize can finally be awarded to a deserving recipient.

Mike says:
May 13, 2012 at 11:02 am
You are confusing the speculations of one scientist with a scientific consensus.
—
We’re glad you agree that the leftist media has been printing nothing BUT speculation for years, mike… but we haven’t seen any ‘consensus’ anywhere. Could you point us to it?

pouncer says:
May 13, 2012 at 10:33 am
Sort of like Glenn Reynolds the instapundit reporting that he had been told in 2008, IF he voted for John McCain, then Gitmo would remain open, terrorists would be tried by military tribunals instead of civilian courts, the US still would reject Kyoto-style carbon-dioxide-control measures and taxes, etc.
My doorgunner in Vietnam said, “I was told that if I voted for Goldwater, the war in Vietnam would escalate and I’d be drafted and sent over here. I voted for Goldwater, and sure enough, the war expanded, I got drafted, and here I am. Or here we are, actually — did you vote for Goldwater, too?”

I think all you haters have gotten it wrong. It was a typo and they meant to say that the “Indian Ocean” will be nearly ice free by the end of 2012.
Frighteningly accurate.

David says:
May 13, 2012 at 3:23 am
Yogi Berra quotes which apply:
1. It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
2. The future ain’t what it used to be.
3. If you don’t know where your going, you might end up someplace else.
4. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Mike says:
May 13, 2012 at 11:02 am
You are confusing the speculations of one scientist with a scientific consensus.
———————————————————————
So a consensus that is made up of numerous scientists speculating on a topic can be correct even if each individual in it is wrong?

If you run the numbers, the sea ice has to be about 30% lower right now and then melt at about 20% higher per day than normal to reach Zero on the typical minimum day of Sept 12. And no year so far has melted out any more than 10% higher than normal per day so it would be physically impossible without March/April starting out the melt year 35% below normal. 2012, by contrast, was right at the average, so no soup for Serreze in 2012.
But then, the NSIDC has many problems with numbers so I don’t imagine they have considered running the numbers.

The Arctic Death Spiral?
Is that when you freeze to death AND FALL ON THE ICE spinning?

Every time I here an outlandish prediction like this I think of this:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9cBc-TQESI&w=420&h=315%5D

Mike, Antbones and Caruba-lies,
Just for you guys…

anotherfred;
So a consensus that is made up of numerous scientists speculating on a topic can be correct even if each individual in it is wrong?
>>>>>>
Good point. I think we’ve failed to take the CAGW movement to task in terms of their use of the word “consunsus”. When a large group of people needs to make a decision, they may do so by consensus. That is, the minority opinion stands down in favour of the majority opinion.
What we forget to point out to the warmists who cite “consensus” in support of their position is that even if there was one (there isn’t) consensus says NOTHING about what is correct and what is wrong. A large group of people might arrive at a consensus that 2+2=3. The consensus merely defines the decision making process, it in no way makes it right.

I agree with a couple of earlier replies. Heartland should use this on their billboards perhaps with the headline “The Real Inconvenient Truth”.

When summer ends, be sure to come back to this and post a copy of the chart of sea ice level.
Bob

I feel panicked watching that video and the accompanying music score, and I know it is old, out of date and wrong on every point. How is this nonsense affecting the children of this world? So Sad…….

Mike says – ‘Sure: New Scientific Consensus: Arctic Is Warming Rapidly, ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2004)’
300 Scientists implies Consensus, and Consensus implies fact…
Thanks for the chuckles!

Frank K. says — “BTW ‘Caruba-lies’ statement above exemplifies everything that is WRONG about climate “science” and the idiotic press releases we’re tortured with on an almost daily basis.
You so aptly nailed it with your backyard rain rate sarc. Mucho Kudos!

Bah! “Arctic” this; “Autumn in September” that.
You’re all a bunch of Hemispherists!!
/sarc

Could we have a “climatoligist” with a model showing the Antartic will be ice free in ?? years. Then I can invest in frakkiing there.

Doesn’t CAGW theology state that the Ice caps and the tropical hot spot (Sounds like a nice rum and coke club) will be the flashing neon lights of Catastrophe?
The CAGW hill really is starting to look bare as everyone starts to drift away, I guess when you declare that on this date aliens will turn up and they don’t and you keep saying wait 5 minutes more it gets boring.

Anthony
It would interesting if you could do a post on the predictions by our climate commissioner of empty dams in Australia compared to the reality.

Did anyone else read and understand the “At this rate…” part of the prediction? If melting continued at the 2007 rate, you would have had an ice-free Arctic. While the scientitst expressed alarm, I didn’t see any of the scientists stating that it would continue at the record breaking rate.
I don’t see why this is being held up as a failed prediction – it seems more like what folks were saying about Tiger Woods a couple years ago – if he keeps winning majors at this rate, he will break Jack Niclaus’ record. But Tiger didn’t keep winning, so he didn’t break it.
REPLY: Did you read and understand your last sentence? – Anthony

Did anyone else read and understand the “At this rate…” part of the prediction?

Oh, and here I thought it was accelerating. Gosh, silly me.

It would be a failed prediction if melting continued “At this rate” and the Arctic weren’t ice-free. If you could find some information about the rates Jay Zwally predicted the Arctic will melt and compare it to reality, that would be interesting information. Based on the cited article, that appears to be 2040 – so keep the proof and we’ll check back then.

It would be a failed prediction if melting continued “At this rate”

Wrong. It would be a failed prediction if any part of it failed to materialize. Like, you know, that whole, “At this rate” part of the prediction.
You sure are spending a lot of time & words defending something you claim is meaningless. Funny that.

yourgovernmenthatesyou says:
May 14, 2012 at 1:30 am
How do these people get away with it? Just how, how on earth do they do it?
They have been caught out continuously….
_______________________________
“They” own the media among other things. I just answered a similar question here. They use the Delphi Technique and NGOs along with the media as I show to give “legitimacy” to pre-determined out comes.

@Darren Potter said, May 13, 2012 at 7:22 pm:
“Mike says – ‘Sure: New Scientific Consensus: Arctic Is Warming Rapidly, ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2004)’
300 Scientists implies Consensus, and Consensus implies fact…
Thanks for the chuckles!”
Science does not find absolute truth. If you want absolute truth go ask the Pope or your favorite religious authority. (Not to be anti-religion. Religion plays a vital role in many peoples spiritual lives.) Consensus statements are just what they say they are: the opinion at the present time of the relevant experts in a given field. They are useful for forming policy. Wilfully ignoring informed opinion is just plain stupid.

Face it guys: YOU ALL PREFER BULL / SCARED FROM THE TRUTH. That’s why they are scaring you by Arctic with no ice. When the ”Dung Beetles” like you get regularly lots of bull -> they are happy and get busy, busy, busy.
Dung Beetles, monotony diet is boring and not healthy for you. For a change, have some truth: 1] water freezes on zero degrees centigrade. 2] on Arctic average temp is minus -30C, if it gets warmer by 3C, still is 27C below freezing point, still would be colder by 10C, than inside your deep freezer!!!. So, if ice on Arctic disappears – it’s for other reasons, nothing to do with temp.
3] Arctic’s ice seats on the top of salty seawater. 4] salty seawater can and does melt ice from below, on temperature BELOW freezing point. 5] ice sacrifices some of itself to melt and turn into freshwater – as a buffer between the salty heavier water below and the remaining ice – so far so good. If the currents below increase – they take away that freshwater that is the buffer – more ice must melt, and more and more. That has nothing to do with the temp in the air. 6] do you want to know why current increases? (is the truth painful for you?)The answers are on my blog.
7] apart of the different speed of the currents – the amount of ice depends on the amount of the raw material, for renewal of the ice every season. Do you know what the ”renewable material” for ice is? Here is a hint: the Swindlers are telling you that: water vapor is bad for the climate ( they are always opposite than what the truth is; to please their ”bull consumers / customers”.
”Truth-phobia” is a sickness; if you start using truth from me (as a salad) with your regular consumption of bull-dung from IPCC & Co; some of you can avoid psychiatrists on the end. Until then, have a good appetite; you have being getting avalanches of bull for the last 20 years; lucky you…you are addicted to bull-dung? Truth is strange; by hating it – the truth will not change or disappear. Who are ”the Bull-dung consumers? A: people that are scared from my proofs / facts / formulas. People that are starving / craving for more bull from Hansen, Mann, IPCC, so that they can whinge about the quality of the bull; but themselves are scared from the alternative / the truth

OK my “a href” failed, here is the link to the WUWT Barents thread from a couple of years back:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/08/new-paper-barents-sea-temperature-correlated-to-the-amo-as-much-as-4%C2%B0c/

Otter: The statement is not out of date.
http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/environment-a-climate/121-enviroment-climate
http://www.acia.uaf.edu/

Otter,
Personally I think policy makes and others are better off going with the assessment of people who actually study the Arctic instead of being distracted by ignorant and highly biased bloggers and talk radio hosts. Anything else I can help you with?

David says:
May 13, 2012 at 3:23 am
…
3. If you don’t know where your [you’re] going, you might end up someplace else.

If you don’t know the difference, just use “yer” for both “your” and “you’re”.