Re Rob Dekker: I am not convinced that temperatures very near or slightly above freezing will cause much melting of snow. It takes a long time for snow to melt, especially in the dark. If the sun were shining, it would be a different story. Those of us that have experienced snowy winters in cold climates know that a 0-2C day in the middle of winter will impact snow pack only very slightly, if even perceptibly...unless it rains or unless it's on the south side of some protruding structure that can absorb a little bit of solar radiation. Snow will melt more quickly near freezing if the ground beneath isn't frozen deeply and it can be melted from below, but that situation is applicable for neither land nor sea in the mid-winter Arctic.

W/repect to Cincinnatus: "no data released after 2011. As for why they bother...." I'm not surprised when data gathered with government funds is not released, or even analyzed. I'm not aware of the present funding situation for the work discussed above, but I know it is the case elsewhere (ecological data gathered by the US Forest Service and Nat'l Parks Service) that there are often only enough funds to gather critical data with the hope that the funding environment will improve in the future. ...now back to watching the battle of egos continue.

Judging from how Old Leatherneck ordered the various odds, I think it isn't that the intended prediction is extreme, it's that the 1's are transposed with the other numbers. I think the intent is that the odds for ice from the Northwest Passage to Siberia are 1:400 rather than 400:1. And so on for the rest.

As a botanist that's followed this blog for a couple of years, I tip my hat.

Fukushima is off topic.