Funny how this forum was all about positive feedbacks to open ocean, and the importance of an early start to the melt season. Now when we have a slow start to the melt season and the associated feedbacks, the new theory is that the ice is just so thin we're just going to drop off a cliff anyways (and never mind the fact that not only is the loss in area slower this year, thickness is also significantly greater as well).
Unbelievable that most people on this forum are predicting SIA less than last year when by every objective parameter (SIA, PIOMAS) the ice pack is much more similar to 2009 than 2012. There is not a single objective criterion for predicting less SIA than last year.
To be honest, I've been wondering to myself all sorts of things about how all sorts of factors work with each other for the whole way through. I don't really make predictions on any of it, because frankly, I'm very new to this -- I have some science background, but I only started really paying much attention to this stuff at any depth last year, and I haven't done the serious digging I would have to do to make an informed guess. But even so, my personal view at the beginning of this season and still now is that there is a _huge_ range of estimate this year that is reasonable and can be defended, because we've hit the point of ice loss IMO where factors we hadn't previously really seen play a big role are much likelier to be important. That's true this year, and next year, and...
Which means, on the depressing end, that we're basically all bickering over whether the patient will die quickly via heart failure, or die slowly via sepsis, and whether a slightly better blood test trumps a failing kidney for today.
But also means, on the upside, that we'll get to watch to see what of these factors play out how, and maybe come away with a much better understanding of the details. Which sure can't hurt as we go into the phase of rapidly losing other ice around the globe.
Personally, I find it rather interesting that many comments on the topic have gone toward calling others out on their assessments. I understand wanting to keep things here in the realm of well-reasoned, but the fact is, nobody really knows what the heck this is going to look like in a month. We've never done this. We don't know how it plays out. Predictions are a useful tool for testing one's ideas, but they're often going to be wrong for the right reasons, or right for the wrong ones, so the final number isn't really the point.
And arguments to that effect that are based on nothing more than a late start or a date comparison are no better than any others. We have no idea how important that is in comparison to other factors. We are babes in the woods.
I, at least, have never expressed an opinion on what will be left, because I don't have a strong one right now. I will keep viewing and thinking with genuine curiosity, and go back to lurk mode.
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