[onlooker]

Okay, I am providing this new topic as it seems that the Arctic might now be reaching that dreaded period when it will be ice-free. With the methane escaping, with El Nino heating things up and with the porous condition of the ice that is present it certainly looks like the time is fast approaching for ice-free conditions. So my poll will allow voters to chose a year when let us say for a week or more the Arctic will be pretty much ice-free.

[Cog]

Change your poll to include the never option and I will vote.

[onlooker]

Guess you will not be voting then haha.

[Cog]

If the Arctic still has ice in 2020 do I win a prize?

[onlooker]

Yes you do a one way trip to the North Pole courtesy of Santa Claus!

[curlyq3]

I think Rockman will find a way to make himself some $$ from all that methane !!

[diemos]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere ... arctic.png

Given the general trend line in the data I would say 30 years.

[Outcast_Searcher]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png

Given the general trend line in the data I would say 30 years.

Apparently you're only allowed to vote for in the next four years. Logic or mathematical extrapolations are apparently politically incorrect here, and need not apply.

And no, I'm not a denialist, but if various choices (including "never" for the denialists) aren't included, then IMO there's not much point in the poll. (If nothing else, we get some perspective on the ratio of denialists to those willing to look at the data).

[curlyq3]

Howdy Peak Oilers ... here is a link to Arctic News which gives a pretty good idea of just how close we are to a tipping point or maybe we have gone past the point of no return already ... curlyq3

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/07 ... atens.html

[SeaGypsy]

There is no global shortage of fart gas, & it is virtually worthless until the infrastructure goes in, which ain't simple or cheap. The guys now in their 50's onward who are experts in the oil game, are going to be kept busy getting at the good black stuff until they move to Barbados & change their identity.

[dohboi]

" a week or more the Arctic will be pretty much ice-free."

Could you define 'pretty much' more clearly?

Lots of people define 'essentially ice free Arctic Ocean' as 1 million k^2 or less, but then you have to decide between area and extent. Nothing's easy in the Arctic.

If you want absolutely no ice in any water up there, that will take a long time, since warming will also cause the Greenland Ice Sheet and the glaciers of the Canadian Archipelago to calve more and more ice into the ocean.

Again, lots of complications (all of which will always be used by pseudo-skeptics to shout, "See, there's still some icecubes in the ocean! The whole thing's a hoax! bla bla bla....)

[dolanbaker]

Change your poll to include the never option and I will vote.

Same here!

[onlooker]

Very good points Dohboi. I am trusting the people here who seem to truly know. I defer to you guys. Still I find it interesting this poll as we got a substantial majority voting for 2016. One week I chose rather randomly as I felt it would be too tough to detect one or two day ice free, so a week should give a more convincing portrait of "pretty much" ice free. Again because I am paying attention to what you Dohboi and others are saying that their is going to be a nebulous state in the Arctic where very thin ice will still sporadically be scattered there so technically their is still ice but "pretty much" open water predominates.

[vtsnowedin]

Also you have to include the phrase sea ice to your question. You could move Greenland and its' ice pack to the equator and it would take a century or so for the ice to melt given the altitudes and thicknesses involved.

[onlooker]

thanks for that reply vts , that will clarify it for those who detect ambiguity. Though some already correctly assumed I meant sea ice.

[eugene]

As I read the comments, I am believing even more in aliens arriving to save us. I'm basing my belief on the quality of the comments ie thoughtful, educated, knowledgeable and worthy of discussion but, hell, I live in America with the, by far, worst educational system in the industrialized world.

[onlooker]

As I read the comments, I am believing even more in aliens arriving to save us. I'm basing my belief on the quality of the comments ie thoughtful, educated, knowledgeable and worthy of discussion but, hell, I live in America with the, by far, worst educational system in the industrialized world.

I too am a believer EU !

[onlooker]

With the El Nino so strong this year and with warm water rushing into the Arctic sea this year, this could be the year if not next.

[evilgenius]

I would have preferred the question, "When will the North Pole be ice free?" That's a lot more likely in the next several years, even this one.

[SILENTTODD]

I voted for 2017, but I hope the 2019 people are right. I'm already 60, but it gives me a couple of more years to croak from something else!