"Sea ice coverage in the Arctic was often seasonal as recently as 6,000-years ago."

It’s coming round to the end of the melt season in the Arctic. For at least 4 years I followed sea ice and identified that there was indeed melt that turned the ice near the North Pole into a kind of slush there has been little change towards the much expected “Blue Sea event”.

The melt of 2012 seems to have been rather an anomoly.

This is the message that Sam Carana of Arctic News is conveying that is repeated from year to year without any modification.

Messages repeated that way tend to become propaganda.

I was put off Sam Carana forever when he suggested concentration camps for those who denied his message.

I have become far more sceptical and open-minded.

Most thick sea ice has melted in the Arctic, i.e. the latent heat buffer has virtually disappeared. This and further feedbacks and events (e.g. high sunspots) may cause temperatures to keep rising, even while La Niña is expected to prevail in Aug-Oct 2024

Here is his article

Both Paris Agreement thresholds clearly crossed

The NASA temperature anomaly vs. 1904-1924 shows that the temperature has been above 1.5°C for the past twelve months, as illustrated by the image below. The red line shows the trend (one-year Lowess Smoothing) associated with the rapid recent rise.

On X, Naomi Wold invited a response to the above and received the following

Sea ice coverage in the Arctic was often seasonal as recently as 6,000-years ago.

https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1814749301568119236/photo/2

Hi Dr. Wolf, I'm an atmospheric science student.

Several mutual followers have tagged me below your post here for my input, so I'll offer it.

Sea ice coverage in the Arctic was often seasonal as recently as 6,000-years ago.

There are several studies which show that sea ice extent (SIE) was reduced during the early-to-mid Holocene Climate Optimum 10,000-6,000-years before present.

In fact, sea ice cover today (apart from the Little Ice Age) is higher than it has been throughout much of the last 10,000-years.

𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗹. (𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟯): “Arctic ocean sea ice proxies generally suggest a reduction in sea ice during parts of the early and middle Holocene (~6,000-10,000 years BP) compared to present day conditions...

We show that increased insolation during EHIM has the potential to push Arctic Ocean sea ice cover into a regime dominated by seasonal ice, i.e., ice free summers.”

Arctic Ocean perennial sea ice breakdown during the Early Holocene Insolation Maximum

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗹. (𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳): “The increase in sea ice extent during the late Holocene seems to be a circum-Arctic phenomenon as PIP25-based sea ice records from the Fram Strait, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea and Chukchi Sea display a generally quite similar evolution, all coinciding with the decrease in solar radiation... This interval of maximum summer insolation [during the early Holocene] is characterized by a minimum sea ice cover, also observed in other Arctic Ocean areas. This minimum in sea ice correlates with the Early Holocene Thermal Maximum characterized by overall warmer sub-arctic and arctic climatic conditions.”

Holocene variability in sea ice cover, primary production, and Pacific-Water inflow and climate change in the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas (Arctic Ocean)

𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗹. (𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮): “In the mid-Holocene, the early summer (June-July) solar insolation was higher than that during the late Holocene, which led to a larger heat discharge of the Russian pan-Arctic rivers and contributed to more Arctic sea ice retreat. This intensified decline of early summer sea ice accelerated the melting of sea ice throughout the summertime by lowering regional albedos.”

Enhanced Arctic sea ice melting controlled by larger heat discharge of mid-Holocene rivers

Based on this information alone, it's clear that sea ice cover in the Arctic region can vary significantly without human influence, and, perhaps most importantly, on time scales that humans are concerned with (i.e., on the order of decades to centuries). As far as Arctic SIE variations over the last century or so, there is evidence that Arctic SIE was anomalously low from about 1925 to 1960, before a recovery from the 1960s to late-1970s, when satellite measurements began (e.g., Alekseev et al., 2015,

On assessment of the relationship between changes of sea ice extent and climate in the Arctic

and Pirón and Pasalodos, 2016,

Nueva serie de extensión del hielo marino ártico en septiembre entre 1935 y 2014

These oscillations on multi-decadal time scales have been driven by changes in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).

While there is likely 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 anthropogenic contribution to recent SIE decline since the 1970s, much of it can be explained by internal variability due to alternations in ocean currents which redistribute heat.