It's fun to watch the veterans clap each other on the back with grim faces. People are treating this melt season like a wake. Not a shock, not the trail that ships leave, although you could be forgiven for asking. The funereal flavor.
I'm a little slow.....so you'll have to excuse my analytical skills on deciphering your sentence above....but I WILL wade in when you mention "shock". Because what we are witnessing THIS YEAR...should NOT be a shock to anyone who has looked closely at the BASIC PHYSICS involved.....as well as the basic FACTS over the past 35 years regarding the Arctic ice sheet.....and looked at the trends of AIR TEMPERATURE, ICE COVER, OCEAN TEMPERATURE, and ICE VOLUME.
I don't think most of the climate scientists who study this are shocked at this year so far. Except for those working for oil and gas companies.....they ALL knew it was coming. And there is more to come in future years.
In my view....the reaction of people should be, that they are P*SSED OFF. Mad at people and organizations that have been LYING FOR DECADES. The Joe Bastardi's, FOX News, Sean Hannity's of the world.
To everyone: desire not to go hugely off-topic and desire to reply to such an emotional message with everything i have to say - clashed in me. The latter won. I apologize for going off-topic, but i really feel i should do it here...
I generally agree with earlier parts of your message, Buddy, but not with later parts.
Indeed, every honest-with-himself scientist who paid any proper attention to AGW in general and AA (arctic amplification) in particular, is well aware that blue ocean event is inevitable and near future. However, not every honest-with-himself scientist is willing to say it in any public space. There are reasons not to do so.
Namely, some are being paid to claim the opposite. Yet others are forced not to tell what they know on the subject, telling very different story instead. Sometimes in writing. Sometimes scientists with big names and in top-class documents. May i remind about
this, for example? It is very difficult to accept that dozens high-tech models are all at fail due to their design errors. And it is very easy to believe that results which go into final IPCC reports are being "shaped" into very different data by the
known process of "multiple stages of review".
Now, why this is being done - and on such a huge scale, - is not a trivial question. Nope, it's not only "oil money wants it, so it gets it done". There is much more to it. In fact it is a question of viability. Ok, let's say governments around the world, all the big corporations, all the public - will be provided with scientifically correct (not like the graph linked above in its IPCC-made part - not counting real observation) data about the state of Arctic as a whole, sea ice there in particular, global climate change in general. Will it lead to something good?
Naive person would definitely say "yes, of course, it will!". But i spent considerable amount of time trying to figure out _how_ exactly it would lead to something good, and what exactly that "something good" can be. The result so far is, i see indeed some good things coming up, easily, from such a "whole world must _know_ the truth about Arctic and climate change in general!" endeavor being complete, but also bad things - and in my opinion bad things are more than good.
We are talking about billions of poor getting MUCH worse quality of life as a result of such an endeavor - quite many of them literally dying as a result. We are talking about lots of business shutting down, without any viable alternative on the horizon. We are talking about corruption and economic "wars" which will certainly be made by many oil, gas and coal businesses present in an effort to survive as a business, - granted, there are such already, but it will intensify many-fold, and would be very destructive for economics all around the globe - lots of people losing their jobs, hundreds millions people scale.
But most importantly, we are talking about absense of any real alternative to fossils. Yes, there are alternative energy and motor fuel sources. But none of those can provide energy / fuel on the scale fossil fuels do, right now. Not even half of it. Impossible.
So the sad truth is, for next several decades at very least, mankind can NOT stop burning fossils on a scale same or similar to present date. Once one understands this (and i urge everyone here to get into all the corresponding papers and technical specifications to see for yourself!), - then very simple idea easily comes to mind: to educate whole mankind to stop burning fossil fuels ASAP - is in fact educating most people of the world to kill existing human civilization (once again, there is no _real_ alternative to fossils, and modern global civilization needs energy and fuels to function last time i checked), and ergo probably kill themselves in one quite slow, "noble", but rather certain way.
This is against human self-preservation instinct and thus it will be rejected.
Ergo, why tell them in the 1st place, then? We know it'll fail - me and others who gave the idea "let's tell everyone!" actual attention, and estimated consequences.
This is how your "the reaction of people should be, that they are P*SSED OFF. Mad at people and organizations that have been LYING FOR DECADES. The Joe Bastardi's, FOX News, Sean Hannity's of the world." - is IMHO entirely incorrect. Lying has its merits. Granted, lots of lying being done for simpler and "evil" (so to say) reasons (oil profits is rather simple thing, yep), but still i can't be pissed off by it, if it in fact helps mankind not to attempt things which obviously lead to prompt collapse of modern civilization.
So for now, in my opinion, the subject of climate change and Arctic sea ice loss in particular - is for specialists to discuss, in relatively low-profile spaces (this very forum being an example), but definitely not for mass media. Nor for high-attention IPCC public reports - sadly, lots of politicians in "developed" democracies are far from being technical minds, and can sign / initiate rather destructive initiatives without proper technical consideration made prior. Basically, it's like "don't tell people of the city that nearby nuclear reactor has safety problems, - tell nuclear physicists instead and let them do what they can, as long as the reactor does not do much harm to people of the city" thing.
Because there _may_ be a technofix. Ain't saying there is. Ain't saying i hope much. But something like Welsbach seeding temporary until ITER comes to fruit (_if_ it comes to fruit, of course)? You know, hope dies last. And noone can be blamed for that, me thinks.