60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice

Remember Barry, it's all about fitting the facts to the model! Mung

Barry:

um Elizabeth, are you referring to the signal where climate alarmists say that the ice cap is in a “death spiral” even though global temps have leveled over the last 15 years and the ice cap is a record size? Yeah, I am familiar with that signal. It’s the signal that facts no longer matter when your funding is at risk because the crisis you depend on to shake money out of the pols does not exist.

No, I'm referring to the underlying trend, beneath the year-to-year fluctuations caused events orthogonal to the trend. As for the "leveling", again, you need to correct for all the factors. If you do, it would be like trying to predict next winter's weather from the trend over the last few days. I'd also like to say, because I read this a lot, that people have absolutely no incentive to get things wrong just to increase their funding. There are far better-paid jobs than science, although not many as interesting. Who, in their right mind, would go into science because they were interested in the money, not in figuring out what's going on? The reason scientists bid for grant money is so that they can do their research, they don't do the research so they can be paid grant money. Elizabeth B Liddle

0.8 degree C? That's it? I bet the degree of warming is well within the margin of error. And seeing that the century before was in a little ice age that degree of warming is also well within a normal recovery from such an event. A cold earth is bad. CO2 is good for plants and without plants there wouldn't be any animals. Then there is the fact that the placement of temperature stations is not the most objective, one can easily see that the small rise in temp is easily offset by that placement. Joe

barry @ 6 Temperatures aren't levelling where I live. Or globally:

In the past century, the global average air temperature has increased by around 0.8 degrees Celsius. The observed increase in temperatures has occurred across the globe, with rising temperatures recorded on all continents and in the oceans. World Meteorological Organization records show that the decade of 2001-10 was the world’s warmest decade on record, and that the 2000s were warmer than the 1990s which in turn were warmer than the 1980s. In Australia, average air temperatures have increased by around 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1910, and each decade has been warmer than the previous decade since the 1950s.

CLAVDIVS

Ice melts because of the soot deposited on it. With soot on it ice can melt even when the temps are below freezing. Also the latest science has global warming- regional warming is more accurate- due to the clean air acts of the 70s and 80s. The cleaner air lets more of the sun's rays through to the earth's surface. Joe

um Elizabeth, are you referring to the signal where climate alarmists say that the ice cap is in a "death spiral" even though global temps have leveled over the last 15 years and the ice cap is a record size? Yeah, I am familiar with that signal. It's the signal that facts no longer matter when your funding is at risk because the crisis you depend on to shake money out of the pols does not exist. Barry Arrington

Don't worry, the decrease in entropy at the ice caps will offset the increase in entropy elsewhere, leading to more evolution and more global warming. Mung

"Climate experts believe the next ice age is on its way." Because science. (With Leonard Nimoy and scary music, 1978) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGB5MMIAVA sagebrush gardener

um, Barry: Look at the signal, not the noise. Elizabeth B Liddle

To add context to the headline, this is an increase from 2012, which saw Arctic sea ice hit its lowest recorded minimum. There are some interesting charts here, showing Arctic sea ice declining over the past 30 years. Note that the charts and articles primarily focus on Arctic ice; an explanation regarding Antarctic ice is here. Pro Hac Vice

Time to dust off the old climate cooling models. LT