Why Did Scientist Make the Claim that the Polar Ice Would be Gone?

Question

Clearly this was a bad prediction. The Arctic Ice is slightly below "average" levels but far above the levels of last year.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

There's less than a month of summer left at the North Pole before the ice starts freezing again.

Why did scientist make the bogus predictions that all of the ice would be gone this year? What theory did they base this statement?

If they are wrong about the Arctic Ice, are they wrong about other things like "Global Warming"? Shouldn't they be forced to have any prediction come true before we believe them?

I think so.....

Answer 1

I'm sure they'll have some explanation as to how a return of sea ice is also the result of global warming.

Whatever happens, it's bad and it was caused by "cars in Boston."      And they mean me on my morning commute, not the band with the album Candy-O.

Oh and, yes, they did say ice free arctic.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/AS...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Healt...

But, isn't that what self-styled environmentalists do, make predictions?

We have to call them on their many past wrong predictions - otherwise they'll just keep making them, because there's no consequence for their alarmism - much like Congress' bailouts and the Fed's rate cuts send the message that investors should make riskier and riskier investments because they're not the ones who will bear the risk.

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PA...

Answer 2

I think the scientists said it was a possibility, not a certainty.

You deniers are all such binary thinkers.  It is either a 1 or a 0 and in your minds 0.5 does not exist.

Answer 3

They meant to say that if something did not happen fast, their grant money would soon be gone.  Which it should be.

Answer 4

It was NOT scientist's who made that claim. If someone did (with that precise phrase), it was the media!

Dr Jello, you should start listening more to science instead of popular media.

Answer 5

***********STRAW MAN ARGUMENT**************

No one ever predicted that the whole arctic would be ice free by the end of this summer!

What was said was that the area in the immediate vicinity of the North Pole could be ice free this summer. This is because the Arctic ice flows. The ice now directly over the North Pole is thin annual ice which usually does melt during the summer months. I think that "they" have placed the odds on the North Pole being ice free this summer at 50/50.

The Arctic probably won't have "ice-free" summers until somewhere between 2013 and 2030.[1]

FYI, we'll be able to see if the North Pole melts this summer if these web cameras located there sink to the bottom of the ocean and stop transmitting:

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/...

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/... [2]

Edit: @ Randell, The Arctic sea ice returns every year, but because of "Winter" not global warming.

Answer 6

They based all of Gore's movie. The Ice melting was stolen from another movie and the ice scene was computer generated.

The global temperature average is an impossibility.

They need to divide up the earth in 1000 sq. miles which they did not do. They took temperatures from the major cities and the older thermometers were uncalibrated. The other thing is there are more city's in the warm zone than in the cold area.

The Democrats want to reduce our energy needs by 50% and I don't think they could do it.. They will block anything that might give some relief to the oil crises.

Answer 7

Well according to several literate muckrakers tyrants need a crisis to create a level of panic in the general population so they can properly control them. And if you do not have a handy real crisis to panic them with why not generate one with falsified conclusions from skewed calculations designed to show a result that is by design not reason. But then I am a skeptic from a line of skeptics going back more than a thousand years and so seeing fraud and skullduggery comes natural for me.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamourous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L.Mencken

Answer 8

Even if they were only worried that the ice would melt at the magnetic North Pole due to the ice supposedly being thinner than in previous years, they're prediction is waay off:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test...

Answer 9

There have always been a few of these guys:

http://myskitch.com/andrewwickliffe/spir...

I too wonder why anyone pays attention to them.

Answer 10

u must pay attention to this. After all earth is our homeland.

Its better that we do believe it. Even if its not true we still must do things to stop it because earth is getting filled with garbage and pollution. its better that we stop it.

Answer 11

The strawman?

I remember the alarmists crying a couple months ago that the Arctic might be ice free, boo hoo (wiping the tears aways from my eyes), and we could be experiencing the end of days, Oh my, more tears, and the arctic could be free of ice.  

Obviously since such a bogus prediction was later found to be ridiculous, alarmist scream "straw dog".  How pathetic.  When will they admit that they were wrong.  Even if the Arctic ice melts for a brief time in the summer, I predict that the world will go on as before.