[troutman]

Originally Posted by JobHopper

There was a similar article a couple weeks ago, were the scientists were scrambling to change their predictions due to the ice build ups currently in the north. I believe there are also some ships stranded in the NW passage due to it freezing over sooner than expected.

Not really.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...ce-increasing/

It does appear to be true that arctic sea ice increased by about 60% from August 2012 to August 2013. Like all climate, sea ice fluctuates from year to year. The trend over a single year cannot tell us much – it’s just the background noise. If we want to know what the trend in sea ice is over the last few decades, then we need to look at a few decades of data, at least.

Dana Nuccitelli at The Guardian has a nice graphic showing Arctic sea ice trends from 1980 to this year. In this graph you can see the background fluctuation year to year, but also the clear downward trend overall. Another trend is also apparent – following any year with a record low Arctic ice measurement, the following year is likely to have increased total ice. This is simply regression to the mean. In any fluctuating system, extreme values are likely to be followed more average values.