That seems to load slowly or inconsistently. Neven reposted it here as a guest comment, maybe that will work better: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/problematic-predictions-2.html

For those with fallible memories, the July 2013 post in which Rob Dekker gave a simple predictive formula for minimum September ice extent is here: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/06/problematic-predictions.html?cid=6a0133f03a1e37970b01901e13f96f970b#comment-6a0133f03a1e37970b01901e13f96f970b

Excellent guest post, Alek. Logical and clearly written explanation of a phenomenon that I (and likely some other readers) have been watching without necessarily grasping many of the interesting details, including the changes over the past decades. Thanks.

Mind you, Watts takes the time to highlight this nonsense, but he hides from his readers that new minimum records have been set last week for both Global sea ice area and extent, and the Arctic sea ice maximum record could very well be broken too in the coming weeks. None of that on WUWT. These things simply don't exist in the world of climate risk deniers. That's not surprising with unwanted facts and data. For example, Tony Watts has gone three years with barely a mention of his home state's record drought, only bringing it up when it looked as if El Nino rain and snow was about to end it. (At this point, that optimism seems premature.)

@ Tim (post #3): this discussion came up on ATTP and was convincingly answered by Hamilton in the comments section with reference to other work. https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/09/30/guest-post-the-elephant-in-the-room/

Does anyone know why Cryosat only reports (Arctic) data from mid-October to mid-April?

No reflection on the quality of your site, Neven, but I really didn't think I'd start following it closely until April or May. But it looks like it may be shaping up to be another 'interesting' year, with all the mixed baggage that that word brings.

A denier was also a medieval coin. Fittingly, the smallest value in circulation.

Regarding Bill's comment at 22:02, Lawrence Solomon writes for one of Canada's two national newspapers. That paper has four or five columnists who consistently attack AGW and have for years. No idea why the paper has such an unbalanced editorial policy unless it's advertising money from oil companies or senior management bias. FWIW all of the columnists are well on in years.

David, I can't answer with respect to every expedition but for reasons of space, cost and liability it would be difficult unless you had some institutional ties and/or were able to pitch it as reporting. On the other hand, depending where you are based, you can fly commercially to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and from there and some other towns on the west coast take trips to the edge of the ice sheet or observe icebergs calving near Ilulissat. And no doubt there are charter helicopter flights available offering the chance to fly over and possibly land on the ice sheet itself. None of these activities come cheap, of course.

@ Chris - I was thinking along the lines of getting the ice out to sea faster, not melting it in place. I think it's fair to say that we don't yet have an accurate handle on the details of how a large ice sheet breaks up.

Folke: "Ice is a very bad heat conductor, so it will take a time to warm up the core of the ice." The problem is that it is becoming increasing apparent that relatively warm surface water can sluice down through fractures and moulins to the base of the ice sheet, which can already be near its melting point due to pressure and geothermal heat. This is starting to look like yet another example of bistable behavior with tipping points - a cold, hard, dry, high-altitude, high albedo ice sheet vs. a warm, soft, wet, shrinking and increasingly dark ice sheet potentially subject to surprisingly rapid disintegration. We'll see soon enough, I suppose.

To me it seems remarkable how little data is being released from Cryosat-2, or how slowly it is coming out. One would expect at least a few researchers would be reporting ice thickness measurements in a more timely fashion.

@ Glenn Tamblyn, 14:22 Based on the planned 2013 scientific missions, this year's route of the Healy may be of less interest to those interested in Arctic sea ice than its 2012 tracks were. http://icefloe.net/healy-current-mission

As a geophysicist working in a field unrelated to meteorology or climate I entirely agree with A-Team's comments on the quality, usability and accessibility of a great many relevant datasets, maps and figures. It really is quite off-putting and presents a high (and wholly unnecessary) hurdle to researchers of all stripes.