For those with a quantitative mindset, I suggest the site listed below.

arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Reply: That is a good one too. I have used their site for blog purposes on many occasions.

what a coincidence I was just about to put this link
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh
it does not look like artic is melting too much in fact thickness and greenland may be slightly greater than 1980! Prediction: artic ice is NOT going to melt even close to 2007 levels.

Each major method of remote sensing sea ice has its weaknesses - passive microwave, radar, and direct light reflection imagery. The resulting images are merely interpretations and are not hard data - that makes them estimates. Even the graphs at Cryosphere Today and NSIDC have the same issue.

Another big problem is that there was no satellite data that would be usable for this prior to the mid 70s. So, for example, there is no good way to compare the warm 90s (and early 00s) with the warm 1930 through WW2 period.

One other challenge is to figure out drivers of areal extent, be they SST, air temp, insolation or wind compression or whatever combination thereof.

So much we still don't know.

Brett,

Anyway you can superimpose those maps for us? Reply: I would need to get permission from that web site. Anyways, my tunnel idea will restore the Arctic ice and computer modeling will prove this.

Quanitative or not, there seems to be qualitatively more ice over the last two years relative to previous.

As I have said before, whether there is more or less ice means essentially nothing regarding global warming or cooling. Besides that, how can the researchers really know where the ice is and is not? Seems far too vast to gain a real accurate measurement.

Can't wait to hear the local news stations try to draw parallels between global warming and severe storms that occurred during last night across Ohio.

After watching radar on this site late into the night, being relatively convinced that the storms would begin to quiet down a bit and going to bed at 2 to be woken up to TORNADO sirens going off at 4, I might just start buying into it. Nah.

What I did learn is that the NWS is becoming very chicken littleish in their watches and warnings. Granted, they are in a tough position and I don't envy them at all, but they extended the tornado watch in our area until 11 even though we clearly had stabilized, they pulled a warning based upon a mild rotating MESO. It was on radar for only 5 min and disappeared.

Seriously, how can you have a TVS sig with a scale 5 MESO but not one with a scale 13 MESO?

The best was our local METS being up at 4 talking about nothing for an hour and a half.

Man, I need a nap! Don't know how Bastardi does it.

More evidence that long-range forecasts are useless.

Hurricane forecasts have 0% correlation with reality. Same for ice forecasts and temperature forecasts.

http://apnews.myway.com/image/20080528/HURRICANE_FORECASTS.sff_GFX177_20080528172723.html?date=20080531&docid=D910NOE07
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080531/D910NOE07.html

Temperatures were supposed to be accelerating upwards this century. Not going down.

If this is true its the most important single event to demolish AGW today national post from Chapman (NASA) no less
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/30/the-deniers-our-spotless-sun.aspx

Rex, thanks for the post. Milutins cycle follows this very closely. Take a look and you can see the correalation with solar cycles. Its truly fascinating how educated people can be so manipulated when it comes to science. Especially so called scientists. Its one thing for politicians and pop culture icons/orginiztions, but trained scientists is another matter altogether. Job security is really what its all about IMO.
Monsoon

Rex, thanks for the post. Milutins cycle follows this very closely. Take a look and you can see the correalation with solar cycles. Its truly fascinating how educated people can be so manipulated when it comes to science. Especially so called scientists. Its one thing for politicians and pop culture icons/orginiztions, but trained scientists is another matter altogether. Job security is really what its all about IMO.
Monsoon

It does appear the Ice Caps are expanding the past three years. Hmmmmmmm

Arctic Ice melt 2008 right on top of 2007.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

Here's a comparison of 2006 to 2008 and 2007 to 2008. I don't see a huge difference.

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=01&fy=2006&sm=06&sd=01&sy=2008

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=01&fy=2007&sm=06&sd=01&sy=2008

Don't they use satellites to visually measure ice extent and don't they actually drill cores in the ice to find out what the thickness is? This thread is about "A Visual Comparison of Polar Sea Ice" isn't it?

Um, less ice means less sunlight reflected. Look up albedo. With no ice, water will absorb more sunlight.

Darren: you are fortunate to be so lucky as to have an early warning system in place, even if it is activated for what you call a minor reason. Better to be safe than dead.

Have you ever lived through a tornado that comes at night? Didn't think so.

Increased severe weather frequency during the summer would be an indication of global cooling, NOT warming. We saw what happened last summer after an active Spring, severe wx declined suddenly, coincident with record Arctic ice loss.

I am a professional.

Anon:

You are right, tornados are bad, but at night, they are much worse.

Believe me, I am not making light of the danger of tornados. I am ABSOLUTELY scared, to the point of a phobia of them, even though I now understand the process a lot better than ever before. I have ACCUWEATHER to thank for that and I am grateful.

Nevertheless, I will plan my entire day around potential tornado activity no matter what time of day, or night, they might get to my area. It was that way Friday and even today as we are in an SPC moderate. I was in the garden last night until 10 trying to get it planted in case we had bad storms this evening.

That all said, the NWS must be wise in the manner in which it issues warnings. They do a great disservice to all of us when the flip a warning FOR 45 MINUTES based upon a minimal couplet with a "5" MESO. Maybe I still don't get the new MESO rating scale because earlier that night I saw a "13" MESO, with a minimal couplet and no warning was issued.

Worse, they extended a watch for the ENTIRE area through the morning hours even though we had seemingly stabilized. To prove my point, the watch area was cut down shortly after it was put up. And then, tornado watches were extended all the way to the coast from here throughout the day. How many tornados formed? A whopping TWO! With thousands of square miles under watch.

I am not against being forewarned, but it concerns me that the meaning of watches and warnings will be diminshed by the public. We see that already around here with winter weather warnings that are meaningless and inconsistent.

Before you start lighting me up, I do know they are in a tough position to warn or not to warn, but the inconsistency is infuriating.

Just wait till 'cane season.

Thor is correct. This year's massive #s of tornados are due to the dreadfully cold spring this year. As was the recent fire in the Santa Cruz Mts in Calif. All due to a late winter / early spring like jet stream config. A config still in place, less than three weeks before the solstice. As someone at NASA might say, unnnnnnnnprecennnnnnnted.

The increase in severe weather this spring was due to La Nina. Springs following La Nina winters almost always have an increase in severe weather.

It was noted over the winter that the line of older Arctic sea ice had retreated past the North Pole (in the direction of the Fram Strait between Greenland and Iceland) for the first time. Now it appears that the line of older ice has broken, meaning that the pack of older, thicker ice is no longer intact. While no guarantee of events later in the melting season, the conditions for a massive melt are now in place. A near-complete melt still seems unlikely, but IMHO the development of a "Central Passage" to go along with the Northwest and Northeast passages seems very possible if not likely.

This combined with the higher oil prices from global peak oil is great news for oil company stockholders like Patrick Henry.

Correction: I think I said the Fram Strait was between Greenland and Iceland. That's the Denmark Strait. The Fram Strait is farther north between Greenland and Svalbard.

Also, the NSIDC Arctic sea ice report for May was just posted.

As a follow-up to Steve Bloom's post on the NSDIC sea ice report:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Looking at the overall trends and ignoring the short-term (3-year) oscillations, the Arctic sea ice continues to decrease while the Antarctic ice continues in it's slightly increasing upward slope.

Despite the highly touted stable to slightly cooler temperature trend since 1998 (which by the way was an actual secondary peak in the Arctic sea ice extent since 1979), the Arctic sea ice extent is still at or slightly below the minimum set around 2000.

Hi Steve Bloom,

Suppose the Northwest passage opens up for a week or two in the summer.

How exactly does that help commerce (or affect the climate?) The Arctic is frozen solid for the vast majority of the year.