"The report was prepared by more than 90 scientists and review editors from 40 countries". "It includes more than 6,000 scientific references, 133 contributing authors and more than 42,000 expert and government review comments". Scientists are a notoriously conservative bunch. If they say 12 years you can safely assume it is already too late.

Eventually the Atlantic and the Pacific (mostly the Atlantic) are going to snuff the Arctic, and when it happens it will come in the form of Dew Point. The only question is when, and how to tell....you can tell when the ice minimum extent runs a lot late, not with the minimum extent itself. I think it is this year, but who knows? (My guess for this year is based upon how warm last Winter was.)

Anyone know of a good long term graph of Absolute Humidity (Dew Point) in the Arctic? I suspect that would do more to explain what is going on here than anything else.

"I'll be doing a piece on the Walsh et al. paper around this year's minimum." -- Neven Sometime in October?

"@ Jim W Perhaps you'd care to rephrase your thoughts, as Wayne and I seem to have arrived at differing conclusions as to your meaning." Not sure how what he said was in disagreement -- though he did make a synoptic reference. I'm expecting that at some point the ice will simply go away, and I see no reason why it will do so in the heat of Summer -- even if I don't know when. I think that when it comes to climate, rather than weather, it is the SST, not the air temperature, that matters. That was my point. (that is...weather is a lagging indicator, in my opinion)

Looking at SSTs in the Far North Atlantic (used to be Arctic) and the prevalence of small storms, I'm not convinced the low extent this year will be in September. Seems to me we are in transition from a desert Arctic to a humid Arctic. With H2O being the actual major Greenhouse Gas, this will have more and more significance in upcoming Fall weather patterns. The only question being which year the end of Summer Melt is pushed into the polar night.

"Long story short: Even though 2016 has been breaking records all year so far, as things currently stand, it will take special weather conditions for it to break any records near the end of the melting season." OK...then the simple question is: why has it been breaking records all year so far?

What people who haven't been watching don't understand is that we who have been watching are holding our breath. The best way of seeing why is by looking at the NSIDC extent graph. 2012 had started turning down by now; which hasn't happened so far this year. At the same time, we are currently just about at the point where 2012 was after it turned down. Does this year's extent stay "flat" and run into 2012's? Or does it soon do the same thing 2012 did????? (Ignore the divergence and increase in extent in the central ocean over the last few days....that is just to confusing to contemplate.)

Chris, "Is the ice response lagging or leading the driving of climate forcings?" All the evidence from the failings of previous models and over-optimistic projections flowing from them is that not only is ice response a lagging indicator, it is a strongly lagging indicator. I'm going off how bad the projections have been, as that is my best evidence in predicting the future.

I still say we have baked in the Industrial Revolution and these numbers are all bogus -- and not in a good way. What we are seeing now are the results from what we did 150+ years ago, and what we are doing now won't be meaningful for at least another 150 years.

You might want to look at this toy: https://earth.nullschool.net/ It's not obvious at first, but you click on the word "earth" for the menu, left-drag on the globe to turn it, and scroll-wheel to zoom. Animating current with a sea surface temperature anomaly overlay is interesting while looking down on the north.

Remko Kampen: "Consider a well B exactly below well A." Precisely. A simple cusp catastrophe. Certainly, the potential function may be more complex, but the simple notion of falling off the edge of the minimum surface at one point to land at another location on the minimum surface holds true in all catastrophes. In fact, all weather and climate can bee seen as sequences of sets of catastrophes. When a breeze comes up and then suddenly fades mathematically it can be described as a catastrophe where the minimum surface of pressure potential at that point folds and the wind falls from one surface to another; which we perceive as a sudden change in wind speed and/or direction. There are physical events we can easily point to and qualitatively say are going be be seeds for large complex foldings of the equipotential surfaces and which will tend to generate large catastrophe regions in the minimum potential surface. One such event is when the Arctic Sea Ice completely melts out in Summer. The climatic system before the event of summer melt-out is functionally different than it will be after the event. Sudden change is to be expected, and the surprise would be if there was none.

P.S. An obvious example of a catastrophe surface is when the Arctic Sea Ice runs out before the end of Summer. Before the event we have the remaining sea ice acting as a buffer. After the event the buffer is removed. Topologically, this is a catastrophe, as the system has functionally changed.

Kevin McKinney: "Jim, you may wish to consider this exchange from Realclimate." Seems to me that the forcing has tended to end up in relatively short term (~100yr) ocean sinks (such as the Sargasso Sea) which effectively regurgitate their heat somewhat later. That is to say, we are experiencing the effects of rather small forcings from the 1800s now, and you ain't seen nothing yet. I see no evidence that the models have gotten timelines even slightly correct, though they might be doing somewhat better about long-term effects. I'm expecting the observed climate to change in what are viewed as large and sudden step changes as various catastrophe surfaces are crossed while the system seeks a new meta-stable quasi-equilibrium.

I'm still of the opinion that it is the CO2 levels from the 1800s that matter now and that current CO2 levels don't have any short-term meaning.

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?