Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
“So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
Yes, 2013 was a very conservative projection. More likely the Arctic will be ice free by 2011 or 2012.
Professor Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University, UK, is an expert on Arctic ice. He has used sonar data collected by Royal Navy submarines to show that the volume loss is outstripping even area withdrawal, which is in agreement with the model result of Professor Maslowski.
“Some models have not been taking proper account of the physical processes that go on,” he commented
“In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly
Hansen past the tipping point
James Hansen of NASA is another brave exception, defying government gag orders. Hansen told Reuters, quote, “”The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years.”