The Royal Society is holding a scientific meeting today on the Arctic and climate change, beautifully timed to coincide with the annual minimum in Arctic sea ice. Unfortunately, the ice, which looks to have passed the minimum over the weekend, has recovered again this year, so no headlines were garnered.
Readers can see a bit of what is going on at the meeting by visiting the RSArctic14 hashtag and it looks pretty interesting. I was amused to see that Julienne Stroeve seems to be tentatively suggesting that the recovery in Arctic sea ice in the last couple of years has made the GCM predictions look rather clever. Put next to their failure in the Antarctic, it feels more like luck than judgement, but perhaps that's just my natural cynicism about climate models.
It does seem to me that we are at an interesting point for the Arctic. In the next few years, natural variability enthusiasts and global coolers are predicting continuing ice recovery. Climate models are telling us that the decline will continue.
We watch with interest.
Bishop Hill
The sea ice itself may have missed its cue, but a press release seems to have gone out anyway. The Sunday Times apparently reported yesterday that the North Pole will be ice-free within five years.
Bishop Hill
BH favourite Peter Wadhams seems to have created something of a stir: