John says, "It also turned out that population growth slowed down, once a certain level of economic wealth and stability had been reached, which nobody had anticipated, before it actually happened." Which population are you referring to? I see no sign that the World's population growth has slowed. John also says, "It is my experience from political and economic fora I have joined that there is sensitivity around any social or economic factor showing exponential growth, and with the example of Colorado crime rates doubling in 7 years, it makes a very big difference if the growth was proportional or if it was exponential, my guess being it was proportional, as exponential growth of crime rates logically makes no sense at all." You just argued that crime rates are seeing exponential growth, then say it makes no sense, if your guess of proportional population growth is correct. Do you believe that the crime rate statistics are being falsified? Could you verify if the statistics you reference are falsified, and verify if your guess is correct?

Well, heat is fungible, you can have it here or you can have it there.... Chaos theory tells us that as you add energy to a complex system, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict. Of late it looks like we're getting patterns of isolated cold and hot spots that are dancing around each other, rather than mixing and producing intense storms. It's as if the Arctic is beginning to settle into a temporary stable state. Previously we had intense cold rotating around the Northern hemisphere while the Arctic remained warm, now the situation has reversed. Will it reverse again? Do we have a chance of freak blizzard in mid-August,while the Arctic clears and warms in one last attempt of seeing summer before the winter creeps in? This reminds me of thermodynamic experiments were a fluid is evenly heated, and the fluid begins to form heat dissipative cells. Each cell locked in a position and the fluid rotating within a confined space. In the Earth's weather system, such things can't last long. And the longer we have a standing weather pattern the more intensity we'll see when the pattern breaks through it's bounds... We live in interesting times. I await anxiously the opportunity to see what happens next.

The brine isolated into droplets isn't in a stable state. When the temperature of the ice increases, it will seek equilibrium and melt the ice that contains it. The formation of these droplets is really just a function of temperature. The higher the concentration of salt, the lower the freezing point of the water. What I think LRC is trying to say is that because these droplets are not frozen, they are weakening the ice and making it easier for wave action to break it up.

"It is impossible to tell how thick ice is on concentration charts. Just because ice is broken into smaller floes by the wind doesn't mean it melted. The buoys say no melt. And they said lots of snow fell over those areas. Which is a negative feedback." Is is a negative feedback? Doesn't this insulate the ice against heat loss into the open air and allow the warmer ocean temps to more effectively warm the ice?

Severe Climate Jeopardizing Amazon Forest, Study Finds http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118111705.htm

OldLeatherneck, if you want to influence him, you simply have to do what all of the other lobbyists do, pay him a higher bribe to do as you'd like to do. There's a reason that these ignorant narcissists get their campaigns funded. They don't ask questions and they don't care about the consequences of their actions. Jack in Texas....

Martin, I don't know of any negative feed backs from phytoplankton that take place on short time scales. Phytoplankton does release gases when it blooms. These gases can contain a variety of waste products including sulfur compounds and nerve toxins. If there is a mechanism whereby massive blooms could reverse the greenhouse gas effect, then the cure is probably as bad as the disease. As I understand it, plankton can reverse the greenhouse, but this process will take tens of thousands to millions of years. Essentially, the phytoplankton need to uptake carbon, settle to the bottom of the sea and be covered up for a geological time span. Essentially the process that gave us our oil and gas reserves.

Werther, what Chaos Theory tells us is that it can be difficult or impossible to associate cause with effect. This weather pattern certainly could've happened before under other conditions. Improbable attractors will still be approached on occasion. The question then is, will this become a statistically significant occurrence? I'm very curious to see what the final peak ice volume is going to be for this winter. Like some of you others, I don't see how significant ice will form under these conditions. The ice extent is anomalously low before the vortex was split. Now that we have warmer air more churn from the storms, I don't that it's unreasonable to speculate that the summer of 2013 will break another record. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm

Djprice537 nice observation... The carbon tax is a nice idea, but I see the implementation and acceptance of it, such a paradigm shift that we're unlikely make that change until an ongoing crisis smacks us around for more than a decade. And with the twin crisis of resource depletion and GW coming together, I see world war as our first step at solving our problems. That's the tool we have historically reached for first, when economies are threatened.

I agree R. Gates. And It's a matter of perspective. Dr. Albert Bartlett puts a bit of perspective on the dilemma. http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2013/01/08/dust-bowl-global-warming-sustainability/31901/

On the topic of extinction events, I'm not seeing much in the way of counter evidence against a global extinction event. Even if it takes 80,000 years to play out, the early years may well be dramatically catastrophic to end our high tech civilization. Add in the economic view? what is the economic cost of extinction and what is the monetary cost of avoiding it? From this view, we might learn that there's no sane monetary reason to avoid extinction. It may be more cost effective to die off. I know this is a grim and pessimistic view, but if true, then there is likely no real hope that we will make the investments necessary to stave off our own extinction, because any project to do so, will soon reach insurmountable cost overruns and be abandoned to chase cheaper alternatives.

If Australia's increased rain takes on the pattern taking shape in North America, then you'll see alternating droughts and floods... I hope your cattle are good swimmers.

I'm not certain what you mean Crandles. If there's less ice, then there will be less to lose... My poorly framed question is in regards to ice thickness and the concern that, though it may cover a large extent, it may break up and melt faster during the summer. So I'm curious about the rate of refreeze in regards to thickness, with warmer Arctic waters.

Does the ice act as an insulator at any thickness and slow the refreeze? Or in other words is, the refreeze linear in regards to thickness? If it isn't then this may be a factor in bringing us closer to an ice free summer.

Steve, are you saying that when looking at record cold temps, you don't use the lowest thermometer readings for a region, but instead take an average of a continent in comparison? For instance, if we wanted to find the coldest temp read during the day, for the USA, we'd average all of the temperature readings? Do I understand what you're arguing as to Siberia?

Once in a lifetime events appear to be happening with some regularity...

I had an idea (based on no evidence) that if the rate of melting from the churn during the storm were increased, then the heat in the Arctic water would be decreased a bit. This would lead to a partial refreeze after the storm passed, as equilibrium is reestablished. Then the trend would catch up again and we'd see the ice loss continue.