Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC sent me this message by E-mail several years ago
One should be careful in comparing single years - 1980 was an anomalously high year
Isn’t it convenient that satellites started monitoring Arctic ice right at the peak?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot.png
Interesting that he said that. What does he know about the ice prior to 1980? What is his caution based upon? And if 1980 ice was ‘anomalously high,’ then would there not be a rapid plunge in the following year(s)?
I see an occillation, coming down from the previous period of global cooling.
That’s the great thing about Real Peer Reviewed Science®: the past is whatever it needs to be.
Although 1980 covers more area it actually looks like the % sea ice concentration is higher in 2012.
The older data needs to be completely reanalyzed using the modern methods. Otherwise we’ve got plots almost as “co2 versus length-of-skirt across time.”
I thought Dr. Mann told us that ice extent was only 30% of what it was 3 decades ago.
I think I may have discovered a new driver of climate, this could explain what has been melting all that non-meltable ice.
“CNN began broadcasting from Atlanta, Georgia in 1980.”