Welcome back!

Extent at IJIS is tracking down the same trajectory as last year, and NSIDC still has their measure slightly above 2007. Still too early to call… Can’t see much in the maps at CT and Bremen either, though there might be a hint of melt beginning to accelerate across large areas, and it is getting pretty warm around the edges. (Explore that linked site for more – they have a very good map with links to weather reports).
I don’t think you can generalise too much about the state of sea ice modelling from the current batch of forecasts. In general, although the AR4 projections don’t get the near term nature of ice loss (probably because they’re not getting all the terms in the Arctic heat budget right), they do show periods of rapid loss that look like current events. They might be getting the dynamics right, at least. And, as I said, it’s interesting to note that the two lowest forecasts come from physical (not statistical) models…
Your thoughts about the weather are also interesting, because I’ve been thinking along similar lines. I need to talk to a few people before I say more, however. Worth remembering that climate change will be expressed through changes in weather, especially when rapid…

And actually, I don’t think the forecasters really know very much. I expect that the forecasts are based on models developed under relatively unchanging conditions. I don’t expect they’ll be very useful when the climate is in a state of flux.

Allow me……..
“We, the ’scientists’ of the NZC’S'C acknowledge the significant uncertainties in such predictions and hence predict with some conservatism that this years minimum will fall somewhere between 6.7Mkm^2 and (considering that the world has been cooling for a decade) 9Mkm^2. And, in the event that the ice extent does somehow slip below our anticipated minima, we reserve the right to re-assess the ‘minima’ in November, or December, or whenever it happens to suit our ’scientific’ argument.”