Several months ago, the Study of Environmental ARctic Change (SEARCH) ask experts to forecast the low point regarding the extent of Arctic sea ice for 2009.
These forecasts were based upon July sea ice data. As September is normally the low point, they were only forecasting 1 to 2 months into the future. The chart below was prepared by Anthony Watts of the blog, wattsupwiththat.com (see blogroll to access this blog)
Inspecting the chart one can see that the experts were all forecasting ice extent at 5 million square kilometers or less. When the chart was made 6 September 09, the ice extent was greater than their predictions at over 5.3 million square kilometers. The WUWT blog for this chart and comments can be seen here.
On the 15th of September, Watts updated the current ice extent.
Watts prepared a table of daily values for the sea ice and the low will probably be that of 13 September with a value of 5,249,844 square kilometers. The area increased on the 14 and 15 September to 5,301,094 square kilometers.
It seems the experts were again pessimistic and missed the mark even though they were only predicting 6 weeks in advance of the low point.
For more on this entry by Anthony Watts, click here.
Cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 