What I find most alarming about the two maps is the way Greenland has swung to the northwest. Who would believe enitre land masses are moving about, up there?

Looks like the North East passage is now open.

First time in recorded history for that.

Gives Russia a big boost for commerce.

Other sources of Sea-ice information:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
and
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

I fail to see the link between CO2 and the arctic melt. All this means is 'weather' in the arctic is warmer. Weather isn't climate, right?

I don't know why the arctic ice has become the poster child for something that is supposed to be 'global'.

It appears to me that there is still more ice up there at the current time. I wouldn't surprise me at all if the graph from the NSIDC had been slightly altered just to make it appear that the predictions of another record melt are likely to happen. If you look at the maps from Cryosphere today and look around Russia and up near northern Greenland you will notice little specks of gray and white starting to pop up. This means that winter is beginning in the arctic and the snow is starting to pile up 2-3 weeks earlier than it did last year.

Check out www.iceagenow.com or enter ice age now and click search. There`s a interesting article about ice build up in Anartica that you don`t hear about in the media. Good reading there. Good informatiom !

Back from vacation and I look forward to more enlightening conversations.

This appears to be a good time to review a sample of the comments posted by the skeptics from last month about this particular topic of Arctic sea ice melt:

"The arctic started the freezing season with the least ice since they started measuring it. If the arctic continued warming, the new ice should have been thinner than usual and cover less area than usual. Going into the melting season, the thin new ice should have quickly melted and the additional arctic warming should has eaten into even more of the multiyear ice than ever before.
Obviously that didn't happen. Let the excuses begin."

Posted by mrsund | July 27, 2008 3:44 PM

OK mrsund, let's hear your excuses.

--------------------------

"Probably true, but, since ice extent is about 1 million sqkm ahead of last year (and most of the melt last year occurred between mid June and mid July it appears that the desire for an ice free pole is a pipe dream."

Posted by Bill | July 27, 2008 6:14 PM

--------------------------

"The implication of this story is that NSIDC didn't bother to measure the actual ice thickness before predicting it's demise in June. The Canadian Government had reported all winter that ice was recovering to near normal thickness - but that apparently wasn't significant enough to stop the publicity hounds in Boulder."

"Great science."

Posted by Patrick Henry | July 28, 2008 12:46 AM

What does this say about your science PH?

---------------------------------------

"...basically they are trying to go for the "thickness" now because the "extent" ain't happening. Predict NH ice will increase both in thickness and extent... from now on and will probably be above anomaly for much of 09. We shall see...."

"Of course SH ice is extraordinarily ABOVE anomaly considering it ain't gone below once in the last 11 months! (1-2 km2 million but thats not important....)"

Posted by Vincent | July 28, 2008 1:25 AM

Do you want to modify your forecast Vincent?

------------------------

"It is apparent that the AGW proponents have a poor understanding of the arctic climate and the mechanisms which affect the ice sheet. They see an anomaly and jump to false conclusions because it supports the AGW hypothesis; that isn't science. If the computer models were accurate then they would have predicted this but they didn't."

"The AGW folks are not willing to admit that they don't understand these phenomena and, instead, try to reconcile contradictory real world events with AGW dogma. They should simply be honest and declare that they don't understand why the ice sheet isn't behaving the way they said it would. They lose credibility with every false prediciton."

Posted by Rick Ressler | July 28, 2008 9:44 AM

Rick, Are you willing to admit what you don't understand about the science of sea ice melt now that the data is showing something different? You don't want to lose your credibility do you?

----------------------------

"Seems to me that a lot of the alarmist camp "scientists" are kind of like fortune tellers, thay make enough predictions that eventually they will get one right and then crow "see I told you so". Sooner or later these guys need to be right on one before we can annoint them as prophets."

Posted by Michael Jennings | July 28, 2008 11:05 AM

Michael, based on all of the comments and predictions of those above, that now appear to be falling to the wayside, you should annoint them as the prophets that you wanted to discredit.

-------------------------------

"houston, we have a problem!!! the pontificating darkside's polar melting co2 superlaser on the hysterics-fueled deathstar appears to be malfunctioning...some sort of leak in the "doublespeak translator" is causing a chain reaction of doubt, prohibiting the consensus modulator to short circuit the melting of first year ice...worse yet, the AGW cloaking device is failing, causing the ethanol injected solar panneled wind turbines to freeze over...you gotta love how these dudes can admit they dont have a clue whats going on, then reason it all out with some hocus pocus shift of explanations....its better than reading the national enquirer....have a nice day, bros!!!"

Posted by sammy k | July 28, 2008 12:25 PM

I can't say it any better about your compadres above, bro.

------------------------------

'What If All The Ice Melts' Myths and Realities.
Wm. Robert Johnston
www.johnstonarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

Thanks Fred:
Deniers are running out of false assumptions. One said,looks like the land is moving. Another, weather is not Climate. Again, the NSIDC is showing us a slanted picture.
Look AT this site and see the Arctic in 1980, and look at it today. Observations have been recorded by satellite and the Ice will be gone in five years. Where will this water go. If we can put a whole in the Ozone layer, we certainly
can enshroud the world with a backed up to the stratosphere amount of GHG's. Any one denier care to answer why CO2 doesn't cause warming. Any one skeptic? Also, you only want to see how warming effects you. How noble? Look at the Philippines or in the South Sea regions. Now there are some pretty nasty weather anomalies. Show why CO2 is irrelevant! Where's the beef.Bad metaphor. I like aphorisms. Never let your your mind be made the fool, by all your other senses.
KIPP
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Reduced to conspiracy theorizing, eh, Garrett? That's a little sad.

Andre, the NE passage has been open before, although both it and the main NW passage (McClure Strait) being open at the same time has never been observed before. For that matter, last year was a first for McClure Strait.

Just great! And some poeople still think GW has ended.

Shiloh, the reason we look at the Arctic is that it gives us indications on the sea ice situation in such an important region of our Planet, the North Pole. A huge melting of the North Pole Ice would have tremendous impacts on the weather around the WHOLE world.

Emi.

"It appears to me that there is still more ice up there at the current time. I wouldn't surprise me at all if the graph from the NSIDC had been slightly altered just to make it appear that the predictions of another record melt are likely to happen."

More conspiracy black-helicopter theories...YAWN

I'm sure the invisible hand of the free market will prevent the sea ice from setting a record. After all, it's the magical cure for all of life's problems!

Kipp,

Here's a question. I know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and I think most "deniers" as you call them also know its a greenhouse gas. I think everyone also knows that if we didn't have greenhouse gases, we'd all be dead (look at the temperature swing on the moon).

So the question is: Since co2 is typically measured in ppm by volume, if it goes up, it must be replacing something else. After all, the composition of the atmosphere has to be one million parts per million. If we get another 100 parts of co2, we must lose 100 parts of something else...what is the something else? If seems if the "something else" were a greenhouse gas, it would depend on the potency of that gas as compared to co2 that would create either more or less of a greenhouse effect.

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

Here's a great video link showing the ebb and flow of artic (and antartic) ice.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ReleaseImages/20031112/a002738.mpg

Mark and Emiliano:Good to see you back:
Mark:The Bill Maher of global warming. Welcome back to our Zoo. Perhaps if we send the Bushes et al to The Arctic, he could send FEMA like he did with Katrina, because you could build more homes on wetlands and have offshore drilling. That should add another 5% to our national economy, in ten years. Pat Boone Pickens is building the worlds largest wind farm, with a little help from his friends. He hopes to get subsides now, for his natural gas, which is methane. That is about 20% now of our existing GHG's. You can make hydrogen from natural gas, but that would be too intellegent.
Hey Emiliano: Did you read the latest IPCC report. People that believe in global warming are known for reading, and gathering facts. Curious isn't it. Well, sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you. Good to hear from you. Good karma works. KIPP

Dennis: As part of the welcoming commitee, I would like to give you this chocalate cake, heated especially for you with a lot of hot air. that is so abundant around here especially with your absence.
KIPP

Kipp, Sea Ice is in the sea. If ALL Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice melted at the same time it will make absolutely no difference in sea level. Why? Because Sea Ice is ALREADY in the ocean. Now, If ALL the Ice locked up on Greenland AND Antarctica melted then yes we will see a measurable rise is sea level. How much? That I don't know and I am sure there are some estimates out there how much water is locked as ice on land. Also, bear in mind not all people who challenge the GHG AGW religion are saying the same things. I am insisting we examine the unbelievable yet very real weather modification and weather weapons programs run by many countries. China being very vocal and proud of thier weather programs. CO2 is not the agent of primary causation for GW. Artificial Cloud Forcing and HAARP and other radio freaquency ionisphere heaters (cell towers, satelite and radar transmissions as well) MUST be included in the search for TRUTH. I still say the atmosphere is alive and we need to explore what our world civilization can do to live with the living earth.

shiloh ice melt is a great trend indicator.

It averages out a lot of weather effects over a extended period.

glaciers
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Glacier_Gallery

sea ice
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

I love it, our only real solid information about sea ice cover began in the late 70's and the AGW crowd believe the world is ending. Much like the "scientists" from the 1920s and 1930s believed (articles have been linked in this forum several times in the past.)

As I have said in the past, I was bummed on my first trip to Yosemite to find that I missed the glaciers, at Glacier Point, by a few thousand years. Come on folks, climate changes with or without us and it will continue to change long after humans have disappeared from the planet.

Finally, I'm in line for one of those "green collar" jobs that will be available after Obama or McCain are elected. Actually, I'm waiting for the handouts that will be left over after the corn lobby, power companies GE (and of course their companies such as NBC, MSNBC, NBC Universal, et al) and oil companies have taken their share (which will be 99.9%.) Give me one example in which government incentives were successful.

Kipp,

Cut me some slack, bro'. My tongue was planted firmly in my cheek. I admit I need to be careful with my humor, however. Sometimes it is over people's head; sometimes it is under people's head. It's hard to always hit the target when the target is sometimes very small.

Brett,

It would be easier to compare if the maps both had 180 degrees in the same place.

I think Skeptics ought concede a point to Alarmists here. There's no getting around the fact this late-season melt is very interesting.

Check out the arguments from last September, in the archives, when the melt was also at high levels. Good points were made on both sides, as well as the usual clever insults.

The current map doesn't show the new in-shore ice reported in the blogs of the two sailboats battling through the Northwest Passage. However it is apparent that an influx of warm water is melting off-shore ice from beneath. A check of the world-seawater-temperature-anomalies maps shows pools of warmth in both the Northwest Pacific and Northwest Atlantic, so there should be little argument about the immediate source of the warming. The argument should move to whether this is caused by CO2 or cycles of the PDO and AMO. Also there is room for debate about whether this is "unprecedented," or whether this was seen during earlier climate optimums.

Dennis Hlinka: Welcome back from vacation. With your multiple-quote comment on this thread, you've critiqued a whole lot of earlier comments by a number of bloggers. Their responses have not appeared yet. Hopefully, my comment won't get lost in the shuffle.

I believe you know my position on Arctic warming and polar amplification. If you don't recall it, I've linked it again. Since I have a different viewpoint from those of the AGW camp, I can't fathom how anthropogenic greenhouse gases could cause the present reduction in sea ice extent. Please explain it to me. I'd like to know the reasoning or logic behind the AGW side of it or at least your view of it.

BTW, I did answer your last comment on the July 23rd open thread. You've been gone a while and I didn't want you to forget about it.

UPDATE************************

From the Moderator (Saturday noon): I will be out of town till Sunday evening and will not be able to post comments while I am away. Sorry for the inconvience. Brett

Call me what you will....I do not care. I don't constantly attack the side of the global warmers. For some reason though you constantly attack us skeptics to try and discourage us because you know that the global warmers are about to be busted very soon. Apparently you people missed the article from NASA that said wind and ocean currents force warm air into the arctic causing it to melt faster and the same thing is happening this year.

global warming, ahhhhhhh!!!!!

the world's gunna end tomorrow, we're all going to melt. better get your kicks in today...

BobB GW by us...

Its ok to mess everything up in terms of making the planet inhospitable when we know better!

I have to disagree with you there.

Well,
As usual I post a question and get no response. It is a simple question. See my post at 10:42 PM on 8/29. Instead I read a bunch of mudslinging comments about how people who read understand global warming is certainly caused by humans; yet ironically, my comment asking a simple question wasn't read.

I think I'm beginning to see another side to this global warming issue. Yes, the climate is changing, it always is changing--it would be scary if it suddenly ceased to change. However, I think what scares AGW proponents more is the very real possibility that the earth is warming and we CAN'T stop it. What if it isn't co2? The cause of all anxiety is uncertainty, and if it isn't us causing the warming, we don't know what is and may have to deal with the fact that we've had to deal with throughout all of human history--there are some things we can't control. People who want power and want to stifle debate are those who are scared of