Do you think the Arctic will freeze to the 1979 level by November 30, 2008?

I think there is a good chance of the Sea Ice extent surpassing the 1979-2000 mean, but it will probably take a few more years to go beyond 1979 levels. The rapid changes that have occurred in the Arctic sea ice coverage over the last two years however are very anomalous and are apparently associated with changing ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, perhaps a direct result of the PDO phase change and or changes in the AMO, so anything is possible.

There are early signs of a rapid recovery of Arctic sea ice:

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High retention of first-year ice

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the 2008 melt season was the higher-than-average retention of first-year sea ice (see earlier entries, including April 7). Relatively thin first-year ice is more prone to melting out completely than older, thicker ice. However, more of this year’s first-year ice survived the melt season than is typical. Sea ice age maps from Sheldon Drobot, our colleague at the University of Colorado at Boulder, show that much more first-year ice survived in 2008 than in 2007. This is one of the reasons that 2008 did not break last year's record-low minimum.

"

We can all guess, but it is arrogant to predict, knowing there are so many variables involved.

In the 2nd linked you cited (NSIDC), the grey curve in the chart shows the average Arctic sea ice extent between 1979 and 2000, which is different than the 1979 sea ice extent.

I plotted a chart using the data NSIDC provides, it seems to match with the one you posted, though values from last 2 months weren't there so I couldn't validate the last part of the 2008 blue curve.

Assuming those values are right and weren't made up, it might, just might seem like it will not reach the avg 1979-2000 by Nov-30 but perhaps it'd be close. That's JUST only a guess.

They gave 2008 and a 50/50 chance of being lower then last year. What does that say about using common sense? It's a extremely volatile area that's difficult to model or predict, based on wind and atmospheric conditions. If they use decade trends no it won't happen, but remember the predictions saying the Arctic would be ice free for 2008.

How soon everyone forgets. It looks like they could miss another prediction. And seems more of a guessing game then fact.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/...

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/arctic-ice-...

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Perhaps if Dana is proven wrong he'll change his tune? (probably not, I predict another lame excuse, but I could be wrong.)

We don't know if the arctic will freeze to that level.

It's very easy to wait a month and see -- and that's good science!

I don't know. Neither do you. Neither does Dana. I make it a habit not to just guess at things that are unpredictable. Who will win the Pats-Colts game? I don't know.

Do you know that man has the ability to control the weather? They called it weather control. That means it will make predictions mute and void.

No, I guarantee you it will not.

I'm not really sure how you can say "it was close". To me it wasn't even close. It's halfway between the 2007 record low and the 1979-2000 average (which was well below the 1979 level).

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_im...

As I predicted in your previous question, the rate of recovery has slowed down because there's less and less open sea to refreeze. And as I suggested in that answer, you should look at the long-term trend, which makes it quite clear there's no way the Arctic sea ice extent will recover to anywhere near its 1979 level.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot.p...

*edit* this question illustrates a common difference between AGW proponents and doubters. Proponents examine the data and arrive at informed conclusions. Doubters say "there's not enough information", which is simply wrong. Also, deniers love to give me thumbs-down.