The Arctic will remain on thinning ice, and climate warming is expected to begin affecting the Antarctic also, scientists said Friday. "The long-term prognosis is not very optimistic," atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University said at a briefing.
Last summer sea ice in the North shrank to a record low, a change many attribute to global warming. Asked if this summer will match last year's record low sea ice in the North, Overland [said] that is likely. "The tea leaves point to a minimal amount of sea ice next September, that would be the same as we had last summer, 40 percent loss compared to 20 years ago," he said.
Tea leaves? That's got to be more scientific than anything else I've seen on global warming ... | Overland added that the winter freeze got a late start last fall. "All arrows are pointing towards, certainly not a recovery, something like we had last summer and possibly worse," she said.
That might be at the root of their problem. They try to divine the weather by looking at tea leaves and arrows, instead of going outside and looking around. |