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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

That’s false. Compare 1980 was 7.54 million, 2000 was 5.98 million, 2012 was 3.39 million, and 2020 was 3.82 million. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/

It is noisy data with few data points, so yes 2013 was 5.05 million but both the peaks and troughs are dropping.

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A different visualization of the same data here, https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-...

that's over a 10% difference between 2020 & 2012, and it was the only year under 4 million, so my point still stands.

What is the point that still stands, exactly? There are peaks and troughs with a clear downward trend. If your point is that in that trend, some years over 10 year periods look similar, then you would be correct. But in making that point, you risk drawing the wrong conclusion from the data.

My point was that you shouldn't base a prognosis on a melt year that has happened once in a 40 year record, when it so far has been an anomaly.

data that I don't like is an abberation. data that I do like is proof!

that's nonsense. It hasn't happened again in a decade despite the last 5 years being some of the warmest on record, and there was a cyclone that ripped through arctic dispersing sea ice in early August that year. It's clearly an anomaly.

Being 2 standard deviations from the trend line is hardly an anomaly, just expected variance over a sample that size.

0.05 * 40 = 2.

Your definition of "really even close" is either absurd or you don't much care about the data nearly as much as the point you wanted to make.

Do you understand the point I'm trying to make? Because it doesn't really seem like it.

The 20 years leading up to 2004 the average was > 6 million square km. 2012 was 3.4. 2020 was 3.8. In the context of the previous average, that does seem close. What was your point?

My point was don't base a prognosis on an anomaly, but clearly everyone has taken it as something else entirely, based on the tones of the replies.

2012 isn’t an anomaly just normal variation, by area it’s the current low point by volume it isn’t.

I gotta say that it really looks like you're using motivating reasoning here. That graph plainly shows the direction, and it's not upwards or even stable.

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