I stick with 3.8 mil sq km, just as before! Alex

The last sentence is the best!

Neven, thanks for posting this. But only 50 million people? It is less than 1% of global population, so it is statistically insignifican number. 500 million is a better number, but probably not enough anyway. Dear Lawrence - but it make difference, if you asked people about major *negative* effects? And what about the peoples *willingness* to change (destructive) behaviour in order to avoid negative consequences of Arctic warming? But maybe it is too late to ask people :-) Alex 50 million views is common for favourite songs, but even then most of population is unaware of them.

Apocalypse, yes, and canadian government also doubled the amount of money for tar sands: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/16/canadian-government-doubles-advertising-spend-tar-sands k eotw, I dont think so - climate deniers are too crazy... Alex

OT, but related to "global warming stopped" propaganda. William Happer wants 1000 ppm CO2, good for plants...: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/17/happer-on-cnbc.html Alex

SATire, hopefully you are right - nobody was around in Pliocene or Pelistocene. But we also know that sea level was 20m (+/-5m) higher than today, so NO ice in the Arctic (and much less in Greenland or Antarctica). The thing is the researchers expected higher temperatures, but not THAT high tempratures. And climate models have prolems explaining such conditions. That's why that talk of (probably) higher climate sensitivity. The paper was also no "attribution" study.

Hi Steve, yes, I produced those graphs provided by data from the paleo-reconstructions, NOAA instrumental Arctic temperatures, and 8°C as revealed by lake E sediments. Of course, that 8°C is just graphical representation of the rise - the year 2100 was chosen arbitrarily (the rate of change is around 0.08°C/year (almost 2x faster than current 0.04-5C°/year). You may argue it's over-estimate or under-estimate for the whole Arctic region, thus the red line added by me is definitely not accurate - which I hope most readers here realize. There is not even any uncertainity in the projection. This is just to show that Arctic temperatures are probably far from equilibrium with current CO2, not to mention further rise. I hope that explanation helps a little, Alex

Craig, we can adapt without much consequence on ourselves and the planet -- I am afraid, this is already not happening, Alex

Greenland Today shows surface melting is below average, actually it did not start yet. My bet is record from 2012 will hold for at least 1 year :-) Alex

3.8 mil. km^2 - I noticed some folks confused extent minimum in september with average september value, these are DIFFERENT numbers. Explanation of estimate - we never had 2 minima in the two consecutive years, so some rebound is expected. Polynomial trend gives 4 mil. km^2, so half way to 2012 minimum gives 3.8. Lets see! Thanks Larry for this, Alex

"It's an exciting time to be a cryospheric scientist." How long? :)

Thanks for bringing this up, Neven. I filled 20 abstracts. Average rating 3,1. BTW it is an unreparable pitty we still need such studies - by this time we should have been ALL massively involved in decarbonisation of our society - forever. But we are doing opposite, of course - and "discussing" irrelevant details. On my own blog I am explaining to fake septics that Beck "analysis" of 400 ppm CO2 in 1940 is not correct. I did not succeed - WTF? Alex

Paul, congratulations and good luck with your papers! @all, Arctic sea ice in steep descend more than four days earlier than in 2012 but I think it is too premature, Alex

Folks, no worries! "The emerging view is that the Arctic will lose essentially all of its summer sea ice cover by the end of this century, perhaps as early as 2030-2040." says Mark Serreze ...well, I am with A-team on this! Alex

Chris, I am afraid, Kosh might be close to the truth! Alex

Greenpeace got almost 3 millions signees for "Saving the Arctic". A have to say I am positively surprised, even if its only petition! http://www.savethearctic.org/ Alex

Jeff, I fear that I may have depressed them more than I expected. Cannot happen to me. I can be only pleased at this stage :-) Alex

Naven, "How could it not?" Well, I think it is James Hansen who points out to the non-existing trend in the Arctic oscillation index concluding, that there is no evidence (yet) that recent waether events could be at least partly attributed to arctic sea ice loss... Alex

Neven, Cecilia Bitz seems a bit conservative to me, defending some climate models in a strange way - that actual arctic decline might be a part of "natural variability" and some of the models do show rapid decline of arctic ice. That implies that she thinks that actually arctic ice decline might slow down significantly in the coming years. This is what you mean by "scientific reticence"? Alex

Sorry, cant stop browsing for some reason, here is nice Anady Lee Robinson-like animations of PIOMASS spiral with a nic music! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUO23Y179pU

And another one, I have seen for the first time, also with jet-stream animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT6qC78u3nA Alex

Neven, here is another, from AGU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXXPKnlmlg Alex

Syddbridges, "the increased albedo and likely release of carbon, both as CO2 and methane, will easily outweigh any CO2 sequestered by this extra growth" - yes, there are studies to confirm this: Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle tundra-to-forest --> -4.5 kg C m-2; permafrost-to-non-permafrost --> +35 kg C m-2 Alex

Humanity, "It might allow us to avoid a massive die off of humans in the next 100 years." Well, who knows... but do not forget resource depletion and the fact, that climate change is only ONE of MANY global problems... Alex

Hey A-Team, looks like a critique of Chris. I suggest that Chris would agree that we are seeing "catastrophic" situation in the Arctic (details be damned). I am afraid, we are all powerless to do anything more than to describe this ongoing catastrophe. Yesterday my friend from Uni studies posted to a Facebook pictures of her 3rd children. I wrote her: "Congratulations. When she will be at my age (32), your daughter will not experience arctic summer floating ice". She responded to me: "Neither did I experience arctic ice and I am quite confortable..." Even of all people recognize Arctic ice is critical for stable climate/weather, whould would change as a result? Alex