Just did my bit on the viral part. You'd think YouTube would have a G+ button.

"I say NO! As long as the modeler has chosen a sufficiently wide range of parameters so that at least one ensemble member gets it right, then the modeler has done their job." It's not clear to me what "their job" means. I guess Climatology Modelling is just doomed to be another dismal science along with Economics. We certainly Don't have anything like Newton's Laws here. I might applaud the scientists doing the modelling while I shift funding dollars to obtaining actual data.

Rob, I think that it is the models themselves which are gradual. That is to say, the Science used to be that climate change is slow and smooth so the models where made to reflect this belief. They do not toss the old model and start over every year because it's too expensive (even if they should), so the models slowly change in the direction of newer understanding. (Note my use of newer and older, not better or worse.) It's a simple case of Lamarkian Evolution.

I have one general criticism of A-Team's analysis of how to get ahead -- time. He'd be right if we had another 50 years of "nothing new under the Sun," but I really doubt that whatever it takes 10 years from now will at all resemble what it took 50 years ago. This will be true from the utter collapse of the copyrighted journals to the rejection of learning in schools.

Lodger, I think it could be said that sex caused the disease. Now I need a fig leaf... Not exactly a rebound, but volume does seem to have plateaued for a moment.

I know. Off topic... One of the decorative sages is just slightly greener than the borders of this blog P-maker. Not sure what its name is.

Personally Paul, I think your prediction is about 2.9 too high. I do agree with your assessment of the 'recovery', but I also think there are signs that the halocline may be breaking down. I admit that I'm being very aggressive in my predictions, but I'm sticking with them at least until mid-summer. This, of course, is just a guess -- but I'm rather sure that some Summer soon the ice is simply going to melt away, and this Summer is as good as any other.

If the Navy has it at all right then what's happening North of Greenland is rather impressive: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Looking at 1) Current Baffin/Newfoundland Sea Ice Area, 2) Sea Surface Temperature anomaly in the North-West Atlantic, 3) the Surface Air temperature Anomaly West of (and over) Greenland, and 4) the AO, I'd like to re-ask a question I asked last fall. What happens if the Gulf Stream decides to flow to the West of Greenland?

I'm having trouble reconciling all this cracking with the PIOMAS model for the month. I figure the model is based upon the cold snap we had a few weeks ago, but I'm really wondering if there is something going one that wasn't captured in the model. Is more of the ice thin than projected? Why else might supposed MYI areas be collapsing?

Off Topic: I've been going bonkers reading that "[Name] on Crack is bad for you"

Looking at Andy's Death Spiral, is that June that has fallen from about the same as March to less than January? The fact that any month has shifted that much is interesting, and I'd say that if it is late Spring then this is even more interesting.

It's a race Terry. Either automation succeeds in being able to replicate, or civilization fails. In either event Homo Sapiens is not going to fare well. I'm betting on the success of automation, and the advancement of civilization myself....but I'm doing it purely out of wishful thinking. I have no good reason to believe that civilization will survive. I just know that it is The Borg, or it is failure.

I'll accept survival as a possibility Nightvid, for a small population, but not along with civilization. Do you have any reason other than hope for thinking otherwise? Actually, I'm betting for the survival of civilization -- just not as we know it. Obviously, no one actually knows what will happen -- but I think it pollyanna to think things will simply be fine. The odds are for collapse first, and survival of a radically different civilization (of cyborgs) second. The chance of a civilization like what we are used to is extremely low.

I would hold, Nightvid, that it is the survival of Homo Sapiens into the 22nd century which would be extraordinary -- though I will grant the possibility of civilization collapsing without complete extermination as a reasonably likely, if not probable, possibility. What I would find truly exceptional is civilization surviving without radical transformation which effectively excludes Homo Sapiens from "Humanity." I say it is either the Borg or the Berg. Civilization in the form of a supreme Homo Sapiens is not going to survive.

Thought I'd move the existential angst over here to the open thread where it belongs. I say it's a race between the Borg and the Berg. Current guesstimates for "The Singularity" are 2045 -- the Borg. Seems to me that's about the same time frame as we're looking at for catastrophic climate change such as collapse of ice sheets -- the Berg. So, I think the future either belongs to robots (even if those robots are us), or to the photoplankton. There's not going to be much room left for "life as we know it." I don't buy into the arguments that there's still time. They're nothing but wishful thinking.

Kate, you want to check out the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). That's the big chunk of ice that could "slide off and into the ocean. I mean a huge part, sliding off because of melt, a mile thick and hundreds of miles across".

What's happening on the WEST side of the Peninsula (where the fragile ice sheets are)? The Weddell Sea is nice and all that, but not exactly significant. The flow rate of the PIG, on the other hand, really matters.

I intended maximum, though I admit to being extremely aggressive. I do expect a rapid progression from ice free all Summer to ice free all year -- on the order of the following Winter to the Winter thereafter. I'm more unclear about when it goes from ice free at the end of Summer to ice free near the beginning of Summer -- though I expect that to be rather soon. I think that once the cap is opened up one time the winds will quickly overwhelm the freshwater lens and the freeze thaw cycle will collapse.

I'm A U.S. Resident. I'm also poor. Besides, I'm making it a habit to lowball; which, I'll point out, worked out fine this year.

crandles, I don't know about 2014 but I'll bet on "essentially 0" for the 2015 maximum volume. I think by then there'll be a little bit of fast ice and either some bergs or a lot of bergs. I'm expecting the crash to be late this year from the current look of things. That means there'll still be enough cold left to do some freezing over 2013-2014. And yes, I'm guessing. I'm pretty well convinced of a fast transition from seasonally free to annually free, but don't have a feel for when seasonally free becomes early enough in the season.

Sure makes the change in 2010 stand out.

If you think it's hot now just wait for the Arctic to melt.

Thanks with the help on that paper Rob Dekker. It was giving me headaches, but I kind of suspected that was what it was saying. It's not to helpful about timelines, but I'd say it supports my belief that an ice free Summer will lead shortly to an ice free Arctic.