Inconvenient: Record Arctic Sea Ice Growth In September

“Jiminy crickets Mosh every “reputable” climate scientist claimed, predicted, projected, promised etc……the Arctic sea ice would be gone/almost by now. ”
WRONG… If you want to know what the science SAYS.. you have to READ the SCIENCE
— not the newspaper, like some goddarian.
IF you are too slow to read the science, read the AGREED UPON SUMMARY
of the science.
Ar5
11.3.4.1 Sea Ice
Though most of the CMIP5 models project a nearly ice-free Arctic (sea
ice extent less than 1 × 106
km2
for at least 5 consecutive years) at the
end of summer by 2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario (see Section 12.4.6.1),
some show large changes in the near term as well. Some previous
models project an ice-free summer period in the Arctic Ocean by 2040
(Holland et al., 2006), and even as early as the late 2030s using a
criterion of 80% sea ice area loss (e.g., Zhang, 2010). By scaling six
CMIP3 models to recent observed September sea ice changes, a nearly
ice-free Arctic in September is projected to occur by 2037, reaching the
first quartile of the distribution for timing of September sea ice loss by
2028 (Wang and Overland, 2009). However, a number of models that
have fairly thick Arctic sea ice produce a slower near-term decrease in
sea ice extent compared to observations (Stroeve et al., 2007). Based
on a linear extrapolation into the future of the recent sea ice volume
trend from a hindcast simulation conducted with a regional model of
the Arctic sea ice–ocean system (Maslowski et al., 2012) projected that
it would take only until about 2016 to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic
Ocean in summer. However, such an approach not only neglects the
effect of year-to-year or longer-term variability (Overland and Wang,
2013) but also ignores the negative feedbacks that can occur when
the sea ice cover becomes thin (Notz, 2009). Mahlstein and Knutti
(2012) estimated the annual mean global surface warming threshold
for nearly ice-free Arctic conditions in September to be ~2°C above the
present derived from both CMIP3 models and observations.
An analysis of CMIP3 model simulations indicates that for near-term
predictions the dominant factor for decreasing sea ice is increased ice
melt, and reductions in ice growth play a secondary role (Holland et
al., 2010). Arctic sea ice has larger volume loss when there is thicker
ice initially across the CMIP3 models, with a projected accumulated
mass loss of about 0.5 m by 2020, and roughly 1.0 m by 2050, with
considerable model spread (Holland et al., 2010). The CMIP3 models
tended to under-estimate the observed rapid decline of summer Arctic
sea ice during the satellite era, but these recent trends are more accurately
simulated in the CMIP5 models (see Section 12.4.6.1). For CMIP3
models, results indicate that the changes in Arctic sea ice mass budget
over the 21st century are related to the late 20th century mean sea
ice thickness distribution (Holland et al., 2010), average sea ice thickness
(Bitz, 2008; Hodson et al., 2012), fraction of thin ice cover (Boe
et al., 2009) and oceanic heat transport to the Arctic (Mahlstein et al.,
2011). Acceleration of sea ice drift observed over the last three decades,
underestimated in CMIP3 projections (Rampal et al., 2011), and
the presence of fossil-fuel and biofuel soot in the Arctic environment
(Jacobson, 2010), could also contribute to ice-free late summer conditions
over the Arctic in the near term. Details on the transition to an
ice-free summer over the Arctic are presented in Chapter 12 (Sections
12.4.6.1 and 12.5.5.7).
The discussion in Section 12.4.6.1 makes the case for assessing nearterm
projections of Arctic sea ice by weighting/recalibrating the models
based on their present-day Arctic sea ice simulations, with a credible
underlying physical basis in order to increase confidence in the results,
and accounting for the potentially large imprint of natural variability
on both observations and model simulations (see Section 9.8.3). A
subselection of a set of CMIP5 models that fits those criteria, following
the methodology proposed by Massonnet et al. (2012), is applied in
Chapter 12 (Section 12.4.6.1) to the full set of models that provided
the CMIP5 database with sea ice output. Among the five selected
models, four project a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in September (sea
ice extent less than 1 × 106
km2
for at least 5 consecutive years) before
2050 for RCP8.5, the earliest and latest years of near disappearance of
the sea ice pack being about 2040 and about 2060, respectively. The
potential irreversibility of the Arctic sea ice loss and the possibility of
an abrupt transition toward an ice-free Arctic Ocean are discussed in
Section 12.5.5.7.
In light of all these results and others discussed in greater detail in Section
12.4.6.1, it is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue
to shrink and thin all year round during the 21st century as the annual
mean global surface temperature rises. It is also likely that the Arctic
Ocean will become nearly ice-free in September before the middle of
the century for high GHG emissions such as those corresponding to
RCP8.5 (medium confidence).

Sunsettommy September 27, 2016 at 7:52 pm
“Mosher, The above is modeling scenarios decades into the future,is non science, since these Models are NOT testable or falsifiable.”
While your comment “it is all modeling junk.” is perfectly acceptable the previous comment is a bit harsh.
Modelling scenarios into the future can be quite scientific and all models of any future are not testable or falsifiable now.
Modelling rubbish into the future like RCP8.5 and then trying hard to believe it is what a warmist does. Steven knows it is right or all his castles fall down.