The arctic as it currently stands has zero chance of melting out completely.

It would take a major shift of climate conditions for this to happen, and until the sun and Earth are positioned where they are, and the melt season ends in mid September, its just a matter of how much higher or lower it is on a yearly basis.

On a side not i love how GISS thinks the arctic is 4 degrees above the normal, which it clearly couldnt be, and yet global temps are still dropping, so far below scenario C its almost funny.

Here is Jaxa showing all years back to 1972 on an equivalent basis (and then what would have to happen for it to melt out completely).

[Note that most charts of the ice on the internet do not start the X-axis at Zero, which is important in my mind].

http://s13.postimage.org/6e1jg3qnr/Jaxa_Daily_SIE_Aug16_2012.png

ARCTIC CLIMATE ALARMING CHANGE

LOS ANGELES. May 30.
A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, and in the Antarctic ice regions and the major Greenland ice cap should reduce at the same rate as the present melting, oceanic surfaces would rise to catastrophic proportions, and people living in lowlands along the shores would be inundated, said Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist to-day, at tbe University of California's Geophysical Institute.

Dr. Ahlmann added that temperatures in the Arctic have increased by 10 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. An 'enormous' rise from the scientific standpoint.

Waters in the Spitsbergen area, in the same period, have risen from three to five degrees in temperature, and one to one and a half millimetres yearly in level.

"The Arctic change is so serious that I hope an international agency can speedily be formed to study conditions on a global basis." said Dr. Ahlmann.

He pointed out that in 1910 the navigable season along the western Spitsbergen lasted three months. Now it lasts eight months.
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Townsville Daily Bulletin - Saturday 31 May 1947.

Great find Snafu! I really thought it was the usual exaggerated today AGW stuff but no...1947 & earlier data & info!

NOAA - Snow and Ice Chart (Alaska)

Wed Sept 19 2007



Sat Aug 18 2012

The 2012 image above matches that of MASIE (may-zee) - Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent - Northern Hemisphere (MASIE- NH), produced in cooperation with the National Snow & Ice Data Centre - (NSIDC).

"MASIE uses the most recent full day of data from the National Ice Center, obtained nightly. As is the rule with operational centers, gaps in production can occur without warning."

An interesting series of graphs are avaiable here:

MASIE Time Series Plots

Notice the difference of ice extent between regions.

40% more in fact. Question is, why arent the satelittes picking up there is a lot of extra ice.

Maybe they're 'turning a blind eye' on it.....

Shell Races the Ice in Alaska

Delays Put $4.5 Billion Arctic Drilling Plan in Danger of Missing Window Before Next Freeze

Royal Dutch Shell is spending billions of dollars to drill the first oil wells in U.S. Arctic waters in 20 years, backed by an Obama administration eager to show it wasn't opposed to offshore exploration.

But the closely watched project isn't going the way the company or the government hoped—illustrating the continuing challenge of plumbing for natural riches in one of the world's most unforgiving locations.

Sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the northern Alaska coast was slow to break up this year, leaving the drilling areas inaccessible much later than anticipated.


Shell has also been setback by its own problems. One of its two drilling rigs slipped its anchor while waiting in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and almost ran aground. Shell also still isn't finished working on a spill-response vessel that under new federal regulations must be in operation before drilling can begin.

The delays have led Shell to scale back drilling plans to just two wells from five. But even cut back, the project remains at risk.

Shell has spent more than $4.5 billion to build equipment and obtain federal rights to drill in waters that could hold more than 19 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil and gas—nearly three times the amount believed to be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

When it is ready, Shell's spill-response barge will need to travel up to three weeks from its Bellingham, Wash., berth to northern Alaska, likely pushing the start date for drilling into September—closer to when the seas will begin to freeze again.

Shell's drilling permits last only until Sept. 24 in the Chukchi Sea and Oct. 31 in the Beaufort Sea, although the company may be able to do some work beyond those dates. The work would resume next summer.

Shell Alaska "absolutely expects to drill this year," unit Vice President Pete Slaiby said Friday.

But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar sounded less confident. "We don't have a lot of time," Mr. Salazar said at an Anchorage news conference last week.

If Shell is unable to drill this season, it would be a major disappointment, said Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. "Shell is betting the ranch on this play, which, if it turns out to be a big as hoped, could be significant for the company, the industry and our energy independence," he said.

The project is just one of many multibillion-dollar efforts Shell has under way, so setbacks don't threaten its overall health. But the problems highlight how oil and gas fields are becoming more difficult to reach.


The Obama administration has a lot riding on Shell's Alaska drilling. The government's offshore drilling moratorium and tougher regulations in the wake of the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill were criticized by Republicans and many in the energy industry as excessive.

The approval for Shell to drill in the Arctic earlier this year was supposed to be the White House's "See? We understand the need to drill," moment, said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the Baker Institute Energy Forum, a public-policy think tank at Rice University in Houston.

But the blown sea-ice forecast and the company's inability to get all its equipment ready on time underscores environmentalists' concerns that Arctic Ocean conditions are too unpredictable for safe drilling and that industry isn't up to the challenge. "The president spent a chip on this project and he is unlikely to see something positive out of it," Ms. Myers Jaffe said.

Mr. Salazar said Shell bore much of the responsibility for the delays but that safety and environmental concerns were too important to rush the project.

Drilling in the U.S. Arctic Ocean proved challenging the last time companies made a concerted try, in the 1980s. A more than $2 billion project called Mukluk backed by companies including Shell and an affiliate of BP PLC attempted drilling from a man-made gravel island 14 miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. It was a costly failure: The expected oil reservoir had moved because of natural oil migration.

"We drilled in the right place," Richard Bray, the head of project partner Sohio Production Co., told author Daniel Yergin for his book "The Prize." "We were simply 30 million years too late."

Still, the Arctic remains enticing to the energy industry. Exxon Mobil Corp. expects to spend billions of dollars in the next few years on a partnership with Russia's OAO Rosneft to explore that country's largely untouched Arctic waters. The companies started seismic surveys this month, a year ahead of schedule.

ConocoPhillips has bought leases for plans to drill wells in the Chukchi in the summer of 2014. Statoil ASA, which also acquired leases, hasn't decided whether it will drill off Alaska.

Shell's geologists say the area they have leased in the Chukchi could produce 400,000 barrels of oil a day or more when fully developed. The U.S. consumes about 19 million barrels daily.

The clock is ticking for Shell as the end of the Arctic summer draws near. One of the two drilling rigs could begin heading up to the sites early this week, where Shell said it hopes federal regulators will let the company begin some preliminary work.

So I guess Ceebee your saying that by 2015 the Arctic will be ice free (if Piomas) is accurate. Nice to see you put a solid prediction up there.

Bob Tisdale, of The "Climate Observations" blog, the ocean SST and heat content analysis "go to" site had this reply to another warmist alarmist fruit loop whose ignorance was somewhat marked.
I liked Bob's somewhat sarcastic and cutting remarks as it fits quite nicely with a lot of the BS around here about the constantly predicted and imminent disappearance the Arctic Sea Ice.

I'd say there is a very good chance the Arctic will be ice free (in the summer) by 2020.

Bob Tisdale is no authority on the Arctic - his ignorant opinion can be ignored.

Bob Tisdale – wilful ignorance personified?

Yesterday I made one of Bob’s comments my denier comment of the day and it occurred to me that I should revisit it briefly because I think it highlights what it takes to be a WIG.

Bob’s blog entitled “Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations” has the nice little description “Sea Surface Temperature, Ocean Heat Content, and Other Climate Change Discussions” which is all great except when you read his comment from yesterday that, “I don’t pay attention to Arctic sea ice…” Why not? Isn’t the Arctic affected by sea surface temperature and ocean heat content? Surely it fits under the banner of “other climatic discussions”? Maybe this is why Bob doesn’t like to talk about it.



http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/bob-tisdale-wilful-ignorance-personified/

Bob Tisdale makes the Denier comment of the day August 21, 2012

http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/denier-comment-of-the-day-august-21-2012/

And if the Arctic is not free of ice by 2020 PG (likely), what sort of apology can we expect from you??? I just think you and your mate will just go back through your a--- and make another ridicules prediction.... Amazing really..

Its funny that after the 2007 record deniers kept talking about an arctic ice recovery and predicting that it will continue. Eg here

Then a new record is set so discussion of the recovery just drops without a trace. Its especially ironic that one of the key focuses is now on predictions based on PIOMAS volume data that the Arctic may be largely ice free around 2016. These predictions came out about 2008 I believe and stated as early as 2012. PIOMAS volume data has continued to follow the trend previously predicted and is still on target for largely ice free conditions late this decade. One question marks being how accurate the data is, its a computer model, but one which has as much checking against real data as they can. The other question being whether the trend will slow as it approaches zero, leaving a remnant of sea ice clinging to the north shore of Greenland for another decade or three.

So the deniers predictions fail as expected, and then they try and mock a prediction which has not had a chance to be tested yet?

In 1910 the nagivable period along West Spitzbergen was 3 months. Then in 1947 it is reported as 9 months. In 2012 that the 'west coast of Spitzbergen remains navigable most of the year' (link)

A quick view of satellite archives show that the west coast of Spitzbergen has been free of ice the last few winters, and typically had a small amount of sea ice in the early 80s.

This is the history of Arctic Sea ice:



Note a reduction for summer ice cover from 1910 to around 1940 at a similar rate to the modern reduction prior to 2005.

Although only based on satellite data from around 1980, earlier data is based on the ice edge as reported from shipping logs. Regular commercial shipping through the Arctic using the Northern Sea route (Russian North Coast) commenced in the 1930s using ice breakers, so there were plenty of ships to give us at least partial data on the Arctic, and this gives a better indication of ice conditions in the Arctic then individual reports discussing the true fact that there was less Arctic sea ice around 1930-1940 then around 1900.

Somebody must have thrown a stink bomb into the warmistas rapidly melting Arctic ice Cave!
What ever it was, it sure flushed them out