Via NatureClimate's feed, a great GIF-animated graph showing the diminshing Arctic sea ice in summer, heading towards zero in late summer perhaps as early as the 2020's. Some bloggers say even earlier.
Above chart works best if you click to enlarge. Chart below needs no enlargement.
Via RealClimate. They link to a blogger from New Zealand who offers a painfully funny forecast of the likely reaction to this among the close minded climate change minimizer crowd.
From Hot Topic:
When Arctic sea ice area sets a new record low in the next couple of weeks, the usual suspects1 will say: “You can’t trust area, sea ice extent is the only valid metric“.
When Arctic sea ice extent sets a new record low in September, the following arguments will be run in parallel:
- There will be a frantic search for a definition of extent in which a new record was not set
- There will be a complaint that the satellite record has been blighted by the failure of a sensor and the calibrations needed to get a new sensor in operation have corrupted the record2
- It will be claimed that it was all caused by the major Arctic storm that hit in August, and thus can’t be attributed to global warming3
- It’s cyclical — it’s all happened before, in the 1930s4, and is therefore nothing unusual
- That it’s irrelevant, because it’s not global and not happening where anyone lives so can’t possibly matter.
When the sea ice extent and area anomalies blow out to record levels in early October because of the delayed freeze-up, there will be silence.
When the re-freeze starts, and the Arctic basin is covered in ice once more (early December), Anthony Watts will report on the record rate of ice formation, calling it a “stunning recovery“.
So true. Have to check back to see how well Watts fulfills the projection.
