Thanks Jim! I'd just been at your site to try and contact you, then decided to try back here one more time. I'm amazed at how much I've come to depend on the forum. Hopefully they'll get it straightened out before too long. Terry

Neven At the Forum I've been receiving a "DATABASE ERROR" screen. I'll check back on the 1/2 hour. Thanks Terry

Thanks for the replies! A work around was found by using the [toggle view] function while attempting to input a reply. I posted slightly more at the forum !no longer available thread. Back to the forum & thanks again. Terry

Is anyone else having difficulty posting on the forum? When hitting reply, or quote, I'm shown a single line in which to reply. This line accepts nothing. All settings were unchanged when problem first occurred and I can read new posts indicating that others do not have this problem. Running win 10 with chrome. Thanks Terry

Sphaerica Very nicely put & while as a Canadian I cringed at D's labeling of "Canada The Good" as a "Corrupt Petrol State", there is more than a grain of truth to it. The Tar Sands has stained Canada's once bright image & it's the responsibility of Canadian voters to end the madness. Fighting a corrupt machine backed by Big Energy Bucks won't be easy, but as the recent Ontario election has shown, it can be done. Sorry for drifting so far OT. Terry

Is there any evidence of the composition of what is shown as bedrock? What I'm concerned with is the possibility that some of the valley floors past the fjords might be comparable to morain or esker gravel and sand deposits as opposed to solid rock. I'd hate to trust future sea level rise to the ability of sand hills to impede glacial flow. Terry

Francesco Having just finished your paper I have to say it's the scariest thing I've ever read. Could I ask you to start a thread on it at the forum where we could debate some of the implications? As the world is set to embark on a fracking frenzy it may be important to step back and consider the 10 & 20 year effects of CH4. Fig. 1 indicates that even over a 100yr period gas may be more damaging than coal. Terry

Is this object the size of a coin, a suitcase or a boxcar? A small object might be mistaken as a tasty tidbit by a polar bear or could get entangled in a seal's fur and hence transported to a safe haven on one of Ellesmere's ice shelves until possibly early this century. If it's acceptable to have the piece reappear at that time as opposed to 2014 some of the problems are mitigated. The larger the object is the more difficult explaining it's survival becomes. Pieces of the Ayles Shelf are still being tracked so once we've moved our object from the pole to the shelf it could conceivably be carried back close to the pole by the gyre. Terry

Congrats to the Sea Ice Prediction Workshop for recognising the importance of having your voice in the discussion. I'll vicariously share in your glory ;>) The most disturbing thing in the analysis is that "ensemble predictions do not improve as the season evolves". It seems as though we should be zeroing in on the solution as more data becomes available. Every year since I've been following the ice I've predicted that it would be the lowest ever, and this year is no exception. I watch as CO2 & CH4 percentages increase and think that the Arctic Sea Ice will follow in lockstep. Even when faced with the blockage of Nares Strait I assumed that openings through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago would render it mute. It appears that I'm a hopeless pessimist incapable of learning from my own mistakes. With this in mind I'll refrain from adding my 2 cents to this year's predictions other than to say again that we're going to break all previous records. Terry

idunno The lag in sea level rise is something I'd not considered & I think it's possibly a game changer. Is anyone aware of the age of the undersea permafrost that we're worrying about? If it resulted from groundcover laid down during the most recent ice age then past interglacials and their CH4 releases may not be good proxies for what we're facing. The floor of Hudson Bay has large pingo features that postdate the breakup of the Laurentide ice sheet. With the seasonal loss of ice over the ESAS why would we not expect massive CH4 releases as the bottom water warms without the additional pressure that thawing ice sheets will eventually provide? The ocean temperatures off the MacKenzie Delta have been extreme in recent years. This is an area that also seems ripe for catastrophic blowouts. Terry

Jai From your linked article: "Temperatures in the region were 0.5-1C higher than in modern times for a period about 120,000 years ago, and at that time stalactites in caves further south, near Lake Baikal, showed signs of growth, and therefore melting." Since he has defined "modern times" to be pre-industrial earlier in the article is he here saying that regional temperatures, not global temperatures are what they are concerned with? If so at 60 North we've already blown by the 1.5c due to Arctic Amplification. Terry

Boa Interesting article - but the comment section reminded me of why Neven's sires are so wonderful. The deniers there aren't even familiar with the subject - amazing & in need of heavy moderation. Terry

I think that the opening of Nares Strait may have a much larger effect on ice volume than the width of the opening might indicate. After the 2009 year when Nares remained open all year 2010 had a huge crash in volume. In 2012 with Nares blocked by PII2012 for an extended period 2013's volume was far above expectations. By draining ice from the bottom of the Lincoln Sea where much of the thickest, oldest ice can accumulate I think that passage through Nares might allow ice to escape that otherwise makes the rounds through the Beaufort Gyre and increases PIOMAS readings for years. Terry

Larry Your graph is eye opening but both links are to the 2,000 Meter graph. Terry

That is a very strange site! Operation Popeye apparently was/is real & from time to time I wonder what advances have been made since the Vietnamese War era. Is there any way to discuss what is known without turning to the tin foil hat types? Terry

Thanks Jim, I hadn't thought to check the Lincoln Sea for open water. I'd point out however that DMI is showing possibly even more open water today & the Max Temp I'm getting at Alert is -26, an even 20C change from the 22md. Naires Strait opened very late last melt season but is remaining open longer than I would have expected. Lots of MYI may have found the back door open. Terry

The little Fram Donut is raising temperatures in Northern Greenland by ~20C - Kap Morris Jesup is -4C while this date in 2012 it was -26C. Warmth is as far west as Alert at -6C. Terry

Andreas has some interesting musings on the topic at his blog. http://icyseas.org/2013/11/16/simple-design-intense-content/ Terry

Faux umbrage by faux skeptics - what a surprise. Terry

While I hate to see the internecine war taking place at RC I've read enough over the years to convince myself that S&S are on the right side of the dispute. Those that have a much better understanding of the situation than I were willing to give them the use of a Nuke Ice Breaker - and that's an expensive toy to deploy if you don't think that their position has legitimacy. Possible higher temperatures or less ice cover in the early Holocene are negated by the much colder temperatures retained in the recently inundated permafrost. The shallow bottom of Hudson Bay shows pingos post dating grooves left by iceberg keels, so clathrates have been erupting in that area since the ice sheet disintegrated. If shallow clathrate formation is impossible how were these features formed? We've been assured that the Storegga Slide wasn't caused by a clathrate blowout by BP, who then were given the OK to drill in the area - somehow I find that less than reassuring. Terry

John As far as prosperity bringing lower birth rates wouldn't something like the GINI index play a major role? If a country's GDP moves upward but the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the elite the majority will continue breeding at high rates. The rich get richer and the poor get children still resonates. Doesn't trickle down economics act to keep birth rates high in regions where a more equitable distribution of wealth, security or privilege might exert downward pressure? Perhaps redistribution rather than growth could fuel the beast long enough to give us time to develop some alternative. I think that Cuba has shown that people can live happily on far less when what is available is fairly distributed & China has demonstrated that a one child policy can be enforced multi generationally. If the West could learn from these examples instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel we just might find a path toward a sustainable future. Unfortunately the old "Better dead than red." meme is still strong & they now insist on taking everyone with them in their ideologically driven rush to the cliff. Terry

Watkin M Are you familiar with the split zoom feature at Actic.io? Flipping back through previous years is simplicity itself. Terry

An exceedingly unimaginative storm naming convention would call this one AC2012-C. Terry

Lewis I'm in agreement with your 20 year time frame. What happens afterward won't have much impact on civilization since civilization will not survive those decades. Terry

The earth began a cooling phase ~6,000 BP according to Imbrie's paper from 1980. If the Arctic had gone through a natural cycle the warm pulse originating from Arctic inundation would have been followed by a continuing cooling pulse and our worries of a sudden release of CH4 wouldn't be justified. A paper from 2012 finds that, at least in Nordic Seas, the Holocene has been warmer than the Eemian. "Moreover, inferred temperatures for the Nordic Seas were generally colder in the Eemian than in the Holocene" http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012GL051800.pdf Since this indicates that warm Atlantic waters were also absent from the Siberian shelves it provides another reason for CH4 to remaining sequestered through the Eemian. I see 4 factors at work & while no 3 of them would be cause for alarm, combined they assure a failure of the (formerly) impervious cap. 1) Sea water inundation as the ice age was ending 2) Geo-heating melting from below 3) Warm Atlantic water hastening top melt 4) AGW removing the sea ice forcing additional melt & allowing mixing Without all 4 in place the CH4 remains sequestered or vents over very long time periods. With all 4 in place the destruction of the cap is unavoidable. I don't see a sudden blow out as an unlikely event but rather the inevitable consequence of the combination of natural and man made forces that are being applied. Terry