Your opinion please- Article says that there is about a 50-50 chance of no arctic ice this summer?

Question

And this was just one guy's opinion in an offhanded quotation. In your honest opinion (and feel free to make predictions here if you want to, you'll get future bonus points for being correct)- if the arctic ice does NOT all melt off this summer, who will be the first media pundit, or YA answerer to say "the global warming alarmists said all the ice would melt away this year and it didn't"

Answer 1

they said that last year too, but there is more ice this year than last year at this time

Answer 2

I predict that we will be able to make the "Northwest Passage" by the year 1905! Oh waite we did make the trip that year there was no ice going on up there. Er....... then I predict we will be able to make it in 1940! Not only that we will be able to make it twice and once from west to east. Oh yeah we did that too. It happens. I predict that the Antarctic ice will grow to "record" high levels. Oh it happened this year. Well predictions suck.

Answer 3

I don't think the Arctic ice will melt completely.  Currently it's on pace to basically match last year's melt.  I wouldn't be surprised if it completely melted in 2010, which is supposed to be the next very warm year.

However, I would definitely bet on the deniers claiming that this was "another" case of a wrong global warming prediction, even if the Arctic ice melt breaks anothe record.  In fact, I'd put the odds at 99%.

Answer 4

rupert murdock's harem

Answer 5

Heck, if that 15 year old girl from Great Britain could land on the edge of the ice last Summer and cross country ski there in a couple of days, sure, the thin refreeze could melt and the thicker pack ice may melt back the last few miles this Summer (or get blown away).

Given the La Nina this Summer should't be all that warm, but 2009 and 2010 could be warm.

More important than whether or not there's a patch of oepn water at 90 degrees North is the broader trend of losing ice across the region:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080424/sc_...

The volumes of the Greenland Ice Sheet and ice in the Arctic Ocean were estimated at 2.9 million and 4.4 million cubic metres respectively in September 2007 -- the lowest ever levels recorded, the organization said Wednesday.

Answer 6

Doesn't matter if it happens this summer or not.  It's inevitable and is coming much sooner than predicted.

I think it's a tipping point.  Once the ice melts the climate of the northern hemisphere is going to change.  What that means exactly is open to debate.  This bit is in this month's Sci-am.

"The increased rate of Arctic melting could spell trouble for temperate-zone lands.  Models predict that if the sea ice disappears by  late summer, bands of desert will migrate north-ward, bringing even drier conditions than at present into the American Southwest, south-eastern Europe and the Middle East.  According to a study published last year by Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow an Ice Data Center and her colleagues, Arctic sea ice has declined far faster in the past 15 years than models still in use are predicting. Hence, the desertification of mid latitudes may occur before 2050 - 20 to 40 years sooner than predicted."

Here's my prediction:

First the Arctic, then Greenland, then coastal cities around the world.

Answer 7

The pictures confirm it, it has already completely broken up.

Answer 8

I'm sure this isn't  the first time the ice caps have melted and it won't be the last.  Who makes up these rules that the Earth and everything is static, that nothing changes?  Who are we to expect that just because it's hot one summer, we can't have below normal temperatures the next year, and drought the year after that?

Yes, the ice caps could be melting, they always have been melting.  One day, they'll freeze over again.

Answer 9

yeah right

Answer 10

I think it's less than 50-50, probably no more than a 10% chance. But it will continue to thin, and it will be ice-free in the summer in a few years. Just not this year.

Answer 11

Even at the present rate of global warming it would take 1000's Of years before there would be total arctic meltdown and that's not going to happen, but you should really think about survival long before then, a rise in global mean temps. of only 8 degrees will kill most life on earth with man being among the first to go, since we are the weakest.

Answer 12

I'd like to but i never hear of these events in the news. But it is impossible for all the ice to melt during the summer because to melt the polar ice caps it would take hundreds of years and most of the ice is in the water so it displaces water......

Answer 13

Steve

Answer 14

But something tells me in with in my inner self that a cathastrophic and an unimaginable things will happen if the ice where truly to disappeared by this coming decade and something bad will really happen. I'm not a protagonist or whatsoever. But the thing that I observed from around the world. This will be our biggest nightmare that will come to us.

Answer 15

All the arctic ice melt this summer...I'd bet anything against that and win.  If people are concerned about this they should go back to gradeschool geography.  But wait...isn't there a concensus or something about all this stuff?  And something about warmers telling the world there can be no debate about it?  That's what I heard.  Over and over again.

When scare-mongers make ludicrous statements like this, they deserve to be ridiculed.  I'd love to meet the guy who said this.  Oh..yeah..I forgot, there can be no debate!  

It's really nothing but leftist garbage.

Answer 16

Some guys say 50-50.  Most just say it's "possible".  But the Arctic ice will surely set yet another record for melting.

"I would be totally shocked if all the arctic ice melted this year. I'd like to see the quote and look at the context. "

Sure:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment...

Answer 17

I would be totally shocked if all the arctic ice melted this year.  I'd like to see the quote and look at the context.  But I don't have any prediction on who will be the first media pundit to blahblahblah about it.  Sorry.

Answer 18

You sound as if you think that prediciton is unfounded and lacking in scientific basis.

Everyone's a skeptic now.  

Don't worry about that, if enough people believe it (and it was front page news for my local paper).  The media will soon up the ante with something even more extreme.