The Arctic Ice Update. September is the Beginning of the 2010 Ice Pack

As everyone knows, the arctic ice melts in the summer, and freezes in the winter. In September, the melting stops, and the freezing slowly becomes more important. It is a good time to see what happened.

2009 was a frustrating year for climate-change activists, the sea ice is greater than 2007 or 2008, but the ice pack is well below the 30 year trend.

While green house gas emissions and green house gas content has never been higher, the climate is not monotonically getting warmer. While the sea ice is not the lowest on record, it is the third lowest according to Nature.

David Easterling of NOAA at Berkeley says that the noisiness of the climate data makes interpretation difficult for the impatient. He says it is easy for skeptics to find periods of warming.

This reminds me of how investment advisors claimed the bonds pay higher than stocks, back last February. That was because the market was at record lows. Now you don't hear that as much.

There has been a lot of noise on this issue as passionate environmentalists get shrill to advance their cause. The truth is that predictions about ice-free polar caps in the short run, don't help.