Arctic sea ice: experts predictions about proved entirely wrong

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2...september-201/

Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016 - they were wrong

Dire predictions that the Arctic would be devoid of sea ice by September this year have proven to be unfounded after latest satellite images showed there is far more now than in 2012.

Scientists such as Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, and Prof Wieslaw Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Moderey, California, have regularly forecast the loss of ice by 2016, which has been widely reported by the BBC and other media outlets.

Prof Wadhams, a leading expert on Arctic sea ice loss, has recently published a book entitled A Farewell To Ice in which he repeats the assertion that the polar region would free of ice in the middle of this decade.

As late as this summer, he was still predicting an ice-free September.

Yet, when figures were released for the yearly minimum on September 10, they showed that there was still 1.6 million square miles of sea ice (4.14 square kilometres), which was 21 per cent more than the lowest point in 2012.

For the month of September overall, there was 31 per cent more ice than in 2012, figures released this week from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) show. This amounts to an extra 421,000 (1.09 million square kilometres) of sea ice, making the month only the fifth lowest since records began.

Although a quick glance at NSIDC satellite data going back to 1981 shows an undeniable downward trend in sea ice over the past 35 years, scientists have accused Prof Wadhams and others of "crying wolf" and harming the message of climate change through "dramatic", "incorrect" and "confusing" predictions.

Dr Ed Hawkins, associate professor in the Department of Meterology, at the University of Reading, said: “There has been one prominent scientist who has regularly made more dramatic, and incorrect, in my view predictions suggesting that we would by now be in ice-free conditions.

“There are very serious risks from continued climatic changes and a melting Arctic, but we do not serve the public and policy-makers well by exaggerating those risks.

“We will soon see an ice-free summer in the Arctic, but there is a real danger of ‘crying wolf’ and that does not help anyone.

For more than a decade, most scientists have accepted that the Arctic will be free ice-free by 2050, while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculates there is a 66 per cent chance of no ice by the middle of the century if emissions continue to increase annually.

Yet in 2007, Prof Wadhams predicted that sea ice would be lost by 2013 after levels fell 27 per cent in a single year. However, by 2013, ice levels were actually 25 per cent higher than they had been six years before. In 2012, following another record low, Prof Wadhams changed his prediction to 2016.

The view was supported by Prof Maslowski, who in 2013 published a paper in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences also claiming that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2016, plus or minus three years.

However, far from record lows, this year the Arctic has seen the quickest refreeze ever recorded with the extent of sea ice growing 405,000 square miles (1.05 million square kilometres) in just three weeks since the September 10 minimum.

The Danish Meteorological Institute said that refreezing is happening at the fastest rate since its daily records began in 1987.

Well surprise surprise as the late Cilla Black would say.

I could have given my expert advice for free and told you they were talking rubbish but there you go. My only complaint with these frauds is this though: why don't they ever lose their jobs for being so damned wrong? If you or I in a normal job in the private sector made such a big mistake career wise then we'd be shown the door in no time.

Yet the (government) money keeps rolling in for Professors Mystic Meg and Co.

Thoughts?

[dbgtz]

It's alright we've all had enough of experts so they'll be gone soon.

I literally just looked in the article, a part YOU highlighted: "the Arctic would be ice-free by 2016, plus or minus three years". Good article there.

I also want to say expert does not mean CAN NEVER BE WRONG for **** sake jesus christ.

[-:Undertaker:-]

It's alright we've all had enough of experts so they'll be gone soon.

I literally just looked in the article, a part YOU highlighted: "the Arctic would be ice-free by 2016, plus or minus three years". Good article there.

I also want to say expert does not mean CAN NEVER BE WRONG for **** sake jesus christ.

So was it plus or minus three years back in 2007 then too?

"Yet in 2007, Prof Wadhams predicted that sea ice would be lost by 2013 after levels fell 27 per cent in a single year. However, by 2013, ice levels were actually 25 per cent higher than they had been six years before. In 2012, following another record low, Prof Wadhams changed his prediction to 2016."

In another three years the ice will still be there. And six year. And twelve.

I remember back in the noughties being told all this rubbish would be reality now. Didn't believe it then certainly don't now.

[dbgtz]

So was it plus or minus three years back in 2007 then too?

"Yet in 2007, Prof Wadhams predicted that sea ice would be lost by 2013 after levels fell 27 per cent in a single year. However, by 2013, ice levels were actually 25 per cent higher than they had been six years before. In 2012, following another record low, Prof Wadhams changed his prediction to 2016."

In another three years the ice will still be there. And six year. And twelve.

I remember back in the noughties being told all this rubbish would be reality now. Didn't believe it then certainly don't now.

The climate is chaotic.

[-:Undertaker:-]

The climate is chaotic.

Exactly. That's what we sceptics have always said.

[The Don]

Exactly. That's what we sceptics have always said.

You literally just said otherwise "In another three years the ice will still be there. And six year. And twelve.". If you admit it's chaotic then you must also admit you can't make predictions such as the one you just made.

[-:Undertaker:-]

You literally just said otherwise "In another three years the ice will still be there. And six year. And twelve.". If you admit it's chaotic then you must also admit you can't make predictions such as the one you just made.

It'll be there but the extent of it I don't know or pretend to know.

[dbgtz]

Exactly. That's what we sceptics have always said.

No I'm talking mathematically, it is chaotic. Just because they got it wrong doesn't mean you're getting it right.

[peteyt]

You literally just said otherwise "In another three years the ice will still be there. And six year. And twelve.". If you admit it's chaotic then you must also admit you can't make predictions such as the one you just made.

And yet many do and actually get paid for it.