Arctic sea ice has already recovered to 2003 levels..?

Yes global warming is over rated

Hard to tell. I hope it doesn't get colder.

TC, it ain't how long the ice is, it's how thick it is, and that thickness is declining (which is part of the reason why the ice retreats so far each summer, there is a lot less of it to melt). http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/sid/IMB/thickcli.htm As usual, you are focusing on only part of the story, the one that makes you feel all fuzzy and warm. But in the cold hard world of fact, the recovery of the ice areal extent has little significance toward implying the trend towards a warming arctic is over. It just means open water cools faster and freezes over faster. Next year, sea ice will retreat to very low levels. The planet isn't cooling, climate change is real. No amount of hoping will change those facts for you. Like I said, you would like me better if I were telling you what you want to hear. I might make that my sig. edit: nice try, dumb bet on my part. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/90day/fxus05.html edit: These don't show temperatures going down: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt Ocean heat content is going up: http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2007JCLI1879.1 (One of Johnson et al's points is that the deep ocean has a lot more volume than the surface ocean, so that the decrease in the surface OHC is likely compensated by the increase in abyssal heat content.) I don't get what is so threatening to you about this concept. Nobody is asking you to kill yourself or really give up much of your lifestyle. You would still be able to drive, live in a nice house, eat lots of food, but maybe you would drive a smaller car, put on a sweater in the winter, eat less beef. How does this really impinge on the core freedoms you enjoy? Are you that wedded to privileges and completely blind to the difference between freedom and privilege? Anyway, you ignore the fact that ice thickness is critical, and it is decreasing. Surface coverage is not the only key indicator, ice volume is important as well, and that is decreasing because of the decrease in thickness.

Did you even read the information on the web site. I quote "Recent observed surface air temperature changes over the Arctic region are the largest in the world. Winter (DJF) rates of warming exceed 4 degrees C" "Sea ice extent averaged over the Northern Hemisphere has decreased correspondingly over the past 50 years (shown right). " The graph you linked to shows a steady decline winter to winter and summer to summer. The only line rising is the rate of change.