1.8 Crap state of ice means smaller disturbances have the same effect of much larger disturbances in earlier years, therefore we are lookign at more than normal rates of melting, which combined with low volume = 1.8.

Regarding the negative feedback of an ice free ocean surface (I say this as an amateur who doesn't know anything about ice or the arctic): I can see the argument that at most the negative feedback would equal the ice covered ocean were it not for layering. But I can imagine the situation where there is a gradient from warm water up to freezing temperatures just under the ice. Over the course of the winter, that lower hotter water slowly releases its heat, reducing ice cover below what it would otherwise be. If that same water has reduced total heat due to agitation by mixing and releasing heat, over the winter there would be more ice formed since there are no warmer lower layers to melt the ice above. In other words, in an ice free ocean, the total heat available/used to melt ice over a winter could be less than in an ice covered ocean.

I went lowest on both polls. Comparing the ice so far with the ice of 2007, the only reason this year is not already ahead of 2007 is because of ice that is doomed to melt for sure, i.e. the southern ice. Take away that ice and the slush, and there are open fingers of water for solor heating extending much farther north than normal. Add in warm run-off water and it looks pretty dismal.

Sigh. Read an economics text book. Most start by explaining how happiness can't be measured even though it would be great. They then move into the various definitions they will use: GDP, GNP, inflation, etc.. It is not that western economics is wrong, it is just that it moves to market forces, equilibriums, etc. because equilibriums (given a LOT of data abstractions) are calculable. I am NOT saying western economics is wrong (although it skips technology - but that is another question). I am just saying that thinking in terms of markets, etc. is wrong in this case. How much is hte price of our lives? Our families? If you want to calculate growth, etc. fine, then use market, etc economics. If you want to calculate costs, then you have to factor in the human cost somehow. For me it is much higher than the loss of a a lifestyle (at to the extent that that lifestyle is based on consumerism.) Somehow you equate my sentence ["I think there is no moral reason or justification to wait."] with the sentence you wrote ["We cannot justify the cost so we are having to resort to moral blackmail"] I honestly have no idea what you are going on about. Stuff like that is A Watts territory: re-phrase and take apart the rephrase. The phrase is simple and straightforward (I thought). There is no moral reason or justification for waiting: many people will die if we wait. Calling a moral argument "moral blackmail" is just spin. By definition, what other consequences of moral arguments are there? As for the rest, I have really tried to make sense of it. I can't. All i get out of it is that we should wait because maybe it will cost less in a few years (?). If that was your argument... maybe. None of us can see the future perfectly. I just think, as I said, that your position is playing chicken with the future. I just don't want to play chicken in the hopes that we can repair the world in an orderly and cost saving manner. I think we are better off kick starting this while there is time to make mistakes and recover. To me, monkey wrenching is the only way to make this process work faster. I have hugged a few trees in my time, perhaps a love of nature does push me farther to the conservative on the political spectrum than you, but I really couldn't care less.

I thought I had posted this but either it didn't stick or was removed (doubtful); anyway, trying again: Quoting Crandle: "I don't think we should be thinking the seriousness of climate change is at a human extinction level event unless you are looking at seriously remote possibilities. So otherwise the worst case from climate change is to completely wreck civilisation." A extinction level event isn't really relevent. The point is how do we justify killing millions/billions of people. The argument that we have time isn't correct; it is playing chicken with the environment, comfortable in the knowledge that the first to die will be the Somalis, the Eithiopians, etc of the world, the ones that don't count economically in Crandle's 'traditional' economics. Regarding the point about measuring happiness, etc instead of money: my intent was that using market arguments regarding cost are false because markets measure relative costs not absolute ones. A coke is more expensive in JFK airport than in Equador because of supply and demand, etc.. However if that coke is spilled, the loss of happiness to the consumer is roughly the same. So it is not correct from an absolute basis to say spilling a coke in NY is 10 times worse than spilling a coke in Equador. Similarly, measuring global warming by market value is false. The cost of a human life should be equal whether it is Somalian, Chinese, etc.. I think we all agree on that. But that is where the sharp edge of global warming is hitting. Give each human life a dollar value, even a realtively cheap value. Give all the things that make up a life a dollar value: friendships, time with family, peace of mind per day, etc.. Then figure out the cost of sitting on our hands versus taking action right now. (This, by the way, is traditional economics, there is nothing fancy about this, it isn't a new system, it was in the first few chapters of every economics text I ever read, it is just that western economics drops it quickly to get to the dismal stuff.) The idea of monkey wrenching oil to $250 per barrel, or $300, $400, etc. is that it still uses the good parts of economics: market forces, local knowledge, etc. without forcing any framework on anyone. If we wait, it will be war time type controls and many dead just to get to the same place. I think there is no moral reason or justification to wait. I also think a lot of the arguments in Crandles response do sound like something out of WUWT. Sorry but they sound full of half truths and truisms.

Good luck with politicians and anything involving the words carbon and tax in the same sentence. Oh, so your informed opinion is that we can wait. Why not save the world now and sort out the economy over the next two decades? Seriously, stop measuring the economy in terms of money. Measure it in terms of happiness, freedom, peace. If you think there is any chance that this situation will evolve in those terms going down the big oil controlled politician route, well I admire your optimism but I don't think there is any evidence to match it.

Why not just set an arbitrary price per barrel for oil, say $250 and then start monkey wrenching infrastructure until it hits that price? It is the only way anything is going to change. Politicians are too corrupt and/or bought to every change. If the issue is really about saving the world, there isn't anything more important. If you disagree, please explain how you justify the loss of life from following the existing path.

So the world ends neither in fire, nor ice but in fireice...

Looking at NSIDC site, the trend seems to be heading for new record lows for the date. Are we taking a poll as to what the max will be this year? And what next year will be? If we start off low, obviously the guess is that we will finish low. But I think given this year's behavior along the coasts, all it will take is a wrong set of currents to get the ice pack moving off of the North coast of Greenland and Canada and that could be all she wrote for 2012.

By the way, any thoughts on what Maria will do? Seems too far to the South but I thought I'd ask.

nevin, fair enough and well said. I didn't mean to put a damper on a well deserved and overdue bit of ridicule.

So that is Antony Watts. He's...old? I assumed from his language he was some 20-something hyperactive geek. Did I miss Dick Cheney and George "No, but I snorted all night at a Holiday Inn" Bush? The list goes on and on... But I wonder... are we failing in something? I dated a feminist once, and I always go t the impression that as long as feminism was the 'anti-masculinity' theory, it would fail. Similarly, I think if we, if we really want to save the world, shouldn't be the 'anti- ???' movement but should have a definite posisitive plan. That's not to say I disagree with this sentiment, obviously I don't, but in the wider world of day to day life and motivating the masses, criticising the corrupt leaders of THEM seems like reducing the whole thing to an episode of Jersey (Geordie?) Shore.

To me, it seems like a kayak with an outboard moter might make it around Greenland. http://www.arctic.io/observations/

Just a quick question: if we know the SSTs nowand we know the ice volume now, can't we calculate what the final volume would be based on the assumption that the ice absorbs the heat? (This goes back to the post on the correlation between ice temperatures in July and final ice extent, which I thought was pretty interesting.) That is a basic high school physics problem for a glass of water with ice. I realize for a glass of water, the question has infinitly less environmental factors... but wouldn't there be some correlation still? Thinking about this question, as the coffee slowly sinks in, I realize this question shows the shallowness of my knowledge about seaice methods with respect to the knowledge of the people on here who range from passionate amateurs to professionals, so please let me rephrase my question: since this is an obvious and basic method, to what extent does this calculation work? Is there any correlation at all?

Wow, i sure wish it was possible to edit posts, a lot of unclarity and mispellings. Sorry about that but if anyone has an answer, I'd sure like to know.

This is a really nice idea for prediction, I'm really surprised no one has mentioned it before. I am having a lot of problem with cyan though. Do you know what the satelite is reading that gives the reading of temperature so low? To me, I don't understand how readings this low can be melt. I am not arguing or saying that it is wrong, my mind just keeps saying infroming me that I do not undersand it. The only thing that makes sense to me is that it is an artifact of the sensing process rather than an actual equiibrium temperature. Anyone?

Reading the posts, it seems like everyone is from everywhere, as to be expected I guess, a great big melting pot. Anyway, has anyone done a shoreline of ice v melt rate comparison? To me aaba, (as a bloody amateur), it seems that in the last week a lot of shoreline opened up in the last week and that this would increase the 'surface' area (i.e. frontage) that is available to melt.

At the risk of lowering the quality of posts on the site, I think there is a chance the Greenland will be circumnavigible this year. Maybe only by speedboat but it looks to me like most of the shore line will open up except for a big chunk on the North shore of Greenland. But if the shore line is open everywhere else it means the artic ice is a loose cannon except that North shore chunk. If the winds are right, I can imagine the ice cracking, moving off shore and creating a navagitible opening.

Regarding the image on the site http://www.arctic.io/observations/, first, thanks, that is a great site. Second, the ice around Greenland looks about as thick as the scum that collects in the corner of a lake when the wind blows. As an amateur I have no idea: is this normal? It seems like with a wind from the west, ALL of that would disapear which would put the entire East coast of Greenland (give or take) exposed. Considering that the West coast is also melting (through the Nares straight), I wonder if this is the year that Greenland will be essentially icefree? If so, that seems a HUGE milestone. (If Greenland has been ice free before, please be kind in your response!)

Good to have you back and hopefully the new blog will generate lots of comments. (Can't do sports on all my coffee breaks.) So my amateur prediction: 4.1 Methodology: look at the data from a bunch of years, watch the 30 day animations on cryosphere today, compare the values for a bunch of different years and what their animations looked like and then finally watch the last 30 days again holding my breath until a number seems right. (Holding my breath forces a decision.) To my amateur eyes, and based on random sampling of animations, the ice this year seems more mobile, the shore lines seem less attached and numerically the meltrate is ahead of 2007. Also, even though it is in the last few frames, the North Shore of Prince Patrick Island appears to be melting. I know how useless visual extension is in complex non linear systems, but I think the macrovariables that matter are ice thickness (duh!), ocean heat, circulation and atmosheric conditions (e.g. weather). As an amateur and using current melt rate as a proxy for ocean heat x ice thickness), the mobility suggests a bad ice melt. Of course weather isn't at all in my predictions but that is needed for my vanity later in the year....(I said it depended on weather, remember?). Fred

No matter how you look at it, that ice is on barrowed time. Sorry. It's driven me nuts. Had to say it. I'm leaving. Sorry again.