A sign you can't see

Quirin Schiermeier, writing at Nature, says that the refreeze has started in the Arctic.

Arctic sea ice has declined slightly less dramatically this year than in the past couple of years.

This is possibly the most outrageous piece of nonsense I've read since the disinformation by the mainstream media about the North-East passage last week. At least the mainstream media has the excuse that it's staffed by the intellectually challenged. But Nature is supposed to be the world's premier scientific journal. You would struggle to describe it as even reputable after this. It's positively Orwellian.

Arctic sea ice has gone up this year. A lot. It went up the year before a lot too. How Dr Schiermeier can make the statement he did is beyond me.

So, now we know which way the ice is heading at present, what does it mean?

Dwindling summertime sea-ice extent is a prime indicator of climate change at high northern latitudes.

Good, so rising summertime sea-ice would suggest that things are getting colder at the moment?

Nope.

No sign that long-term trend is reversing, scientists caution.

Huh? What would a sign of the long-term trend reversing look like then?

Comments

[Jack Hughes]

Bish,

A lot of people think that a line on a graph can have its own momentum. It will keep on travelling in a direction all by itself.

House prices are an easy example.

[Frank O'Dwyer]

"What would a sign of the long-term trend reversing look like then?"

Well, it would look like observations outside the 95% confidence interval for the long term downard trend.

And what does a long term downward trend look like? Much like a graph of arctic ice.

[Andrew Duffin]

Remember that these articles are written for consumption by people who think a reduction in tax is a "gift", and that a decrease in the planned rate of increase is a "cut".

Mathematical rigour isn't really their thing.

[Bishop Hill]

Frank

Has anyone demonstrated this one way or the other?

And another thing: falling outside the 95% CIs for the long-term trend is not the same as "a sign" of a change is it?