One thing was constant in 2008:  the sea ice was going to disappear and the polar bears were all going to drown or starve.

The Christian Science Monitor wrote:

Arctic Ocean sea ice – one of the most visible indicators for global warming – may be headed for another record-breaking summer decline.

If the pattern continues, new research suggests, its warming effect could reach up to 900 miles inland, melting permafrost and potentially altering weather patterns at lower latitudes.

Treehugger warned:

You may find this hard to believe considering the wintry weather across much of the US, but the long term trend is still for warmer ice-free summers in Arctic. In fact we have probably already passed a tipping point and are 20 years ahead of schedule on the melting front, according to Mark Sezzere of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

And Science Daily wrote:

The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 — the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured.

“…almost 100 per cent probability…” 

Sounds like a sure thing to me.  However, they were all wrong.  In fact, they were wrong about almost everything.  Sea ice is back to the same level they were at when humans started keeping records on it:

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly — defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.

What is most interesting is why this is happening.  Remember, the ice was all supposed to melt away because the new ice was so thin.  However, that is precisely the reason for the rebound:

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

It was because of the “100 per cent probability” of a sea ice decrease that polar bears were put on the endangered species list, a move that was purely for propaganda reasons.  As I wrote here, polar bears are not in danger and are being used as a prop by the global warming cult.

Hopefully this news will get the attention it warrants in the main stream media, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Hat Tip:  Polipundit

Photo Credit:  Oxfam International

Related posts:

• Arctic Ice “Twice as Thick” As Expected, Polar Bears Still Just a Prop
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• Time Lapse Video Shows 30 Years of the Arctic Sea Ice
• Polar Bears are a Prop, Not An Endangered Species
• The Hottest Governor in the United States to Sue the Interior Department…Over Polar Bears