Arctic Sea ice reached a record low in 2012, but it's up 60 percent this year, when levels in August 2012 and August 2013 are compared. Some have cited this as a sign of global warming being "paused" or of "global cooling". Ahead of the U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's expected release of its Fifth Assessment Report in October, the debate between "mainstream scientists" and "climate skeptics" continues. Arctic Sea ice shrank to a record low, but according recent data it has rebounded, covering 60 percent more in August 2013 than August 2012. The National Snow and Ice Data Center, Points out it still falls below the 1981 through 2010 average for the month. Sea ice extent for August 2013 averaged 6.09 million square kilometers. This was 1.03 million square kilometers (398,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average for August, but well above the level recorded last year, which was the lowest September extent in the satellite record. Ice extent this August was similar to the years 2008 to 2010. Theses contrasts in ice extent from one year to the next highlight the year-to-year variability attending the overall, long-term decline in sea ice extent. The U.K's Daily Mail took a moment with this latest data to recall a prediction made several years ago by a scientist speaking to the BBC, saying that the Arctic would be ice-free in the summer by 2013.
The BBC's 2007 rreport quoted scientist Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, who based his views on super-computer models and the fact that "we use a high-resolution regional model for the Arctic Ocean and sea ice." The reason so many climate scientists predicted more ice this year than last is quite simple. There's a principle in statistics known as 'regression toward the mean," which is the phenomenon that if an extreme value of a variable is observed, the next measurement will generally be less extreme. We should not often expect to observe records in consecutive years. 2012 shattered the previous record low sea ice extent; hence 'regression towards the mean' told us that 2013 would likely have a higher minimum extent.
"In reality, global surface temperatures have warmed over the past 15 years, albeit more slowly than during the previous 15 years, "Nuccitelli noted. But he cited the overall planet including the oceans as getting warming in the last 15 years compared to the prior 15 years.
