Yes, virtually tied. How accurate do you think the estimate of ice cover is?
Dunno. Why donât you tell me? There doesnât seem to be error bars on your graph.
Which point is lower on the graph? 2018 or 2016?
As of October 21, they are virtually identical.
Arenât you the guy who just a couple of posts ago told me to not get too nit picky?
If you say so.
Talk about missing the point. Always getting bogged down with nit picks.
I love irony. 
Donât get sucked in.
You keep using that word. I donât think you understand what it means.
Are you changing the subject again?
Only responding to the comments directed at me, like I said I would.
Then why did you start this round off by responding to my post to noSpaces about his graph when I was not talking to you?
Not that I mind. You asked a simple question, which I answered. But where you took it from there borders on obsession.
September is typically when artic sea ice reaches its minimum. Hereâs how that minimum has dropped substantially over the decades of observation.
I admit Samm, Iâm obsessed with visual representation of data.
Lock me up and throw away the key.
You put too much faith in what you see. The fact is, the numbers behind the pretty colored lines, are not as accurate as where those lines are drawn on the graph. Ice extent is an estimate of the area containing at least 15% ice (which itself is an estimate) not a precise measurement of ice cover. Because of that, we have no way of knowing by looking at the graph how much of the area included as âice extentâ on any given day of any given year, is actually ice rather than open water. Furthermore, the microwave sensors used by the satellite born instruments to detect ice, cannot distinguish between open sea water and water on top of the ice. Itâs nothing more than an educated guess.
Yes there is error in measurement that makes measurement an estimate, but if the measure is being repeatedly taken with a controlled method the estimates over time are comparable and thus the trends are meaningful. Since sea ice floats, itâs not clear how prevalent water atop the sea ice would actually be. How does one quantify the level of doubt proposed? Like, to the extent there is really no idea what is happening, that the trend may actually be reverse or flat and that the satellites tasked with the measures are total junk?
I didnât say that there was an error in measurement, I said the measurements are in exact. In the extreme, 15% ice coverage over the entire Arctic would be reported the same as 100% ice coverage.
As far as the prevalence of water atop the ice, during the summer, the floating sea ice melts on the surface and creates pools of water in the low spots. (Contrary to conventional thinking, the frozen ocean is not flat, it undulates into small hills and valleys like wind blown sand.) The microwave instruments canât distinguish those melt ponds from open water, so can greatly under report the ice, unless the data is adjusted to account for that water. I agree that given that the same methods of measurement over time do adequately reflect the trend in ice extent, they do not definitively compare directly between any two sets of plotted data. As I said, given the variables present in the data, the plot of the ice extent today is virtually identical to the plot of the ice extent on the same day in 2016.
Hopefully the rate of closures exceeds any potential new plants. Still, retarding the shift away from and signalling to India, China as such is not good. Courtesy of the Environmental Pollution Agency.
Not only are the glaciers doing fine, so are we.
Yes and itâs not only not gone itâs growing.
