Arctic Ice and Solar Cycle

The gurus of solar cycles were wrong about the timing of Cycle 24, but the sun seems to be kicking up and we're clearly on the rise. Whether we reach the oft-revised target date and intensity, I wouldn't hazard a guess. My interest was always a bit quirky, based mostly on my irritation that people were positively denying possibilities that were real, but I had no real idea why sunspots might affect climate. The Arizona guys were saying that it's the next cycle that will go really quiet, not this one, so we're a few years away from seeing if they're right.

Meantime, the Danish measurements of far North temperatures show somewhat colder weather this January than in the recent past, but the Japanese data on ice extent shows no clear pattern. The multi-year graph still looks like spaghetti. I'm guessing that September will be much like last September, which will disappoint Al Gore.

Also Time Magazine which has run an alarmist story about how ice in the Beaufort Sea seems thin. It's pretty close to a "duh" moment. The researcher discovered this in October. In mid October, the ice extent had grown by about 50% from the September low. On the edge, naturally, so if you take an ice breaker into the ice, you will first encounter thin new ice. This is surprising? That observation is accompanied by additional, unscientific observations of an ad hoc nature.

The author writes for a warmist Web site. I think when someone whose career depends on the success of AGW writes about global warming, there should be some sort of warning label.