Most people visiting this site have seen the graph. The summer ice cover in the Arctic declines, reaching an all-time low in 2005, then rebounds just slightly in 2006, only to take a vertigo-inducing plummet in 2007 that obliterates the 2005 record. (If you’re new around these parts, see Figure 3 on this page for the graph in question.)

On top of these recent records we have warnings about how thin the Arctic ice is, as one would expect coming off that 2007 summer record melt, and how we could easily blow past that record in 2008.

Which begs the question: When will we have a summer in which it all melts, and the entire top of the planet is blue water?

As it turns out, at least a few scientists are saying it could happen in five years–unless they were being too conservative (an ironic twist to the term that anyone familiar with US politics should find, well, twisted). And one scientist said it five years ago.

That scientist, Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski, was interviewed by the group Beyond Zero Emissions, and you can read the interview or download a podcast here.

The interview includes this exchange (emphasis added via italics, the bolding is in the original):

Matthew Wright: Ok. So now, it was reported in The New York Times that you said that 2013 was a possibility and perhaps you’d actually projected this some years ago, that we could lose the summer sea ice extent - that’s in the summer solstice is it?

Dr Wieslaw Maslowski: That is correct. So the minimum in the Arctic ice extent has been typically occurring some time in September, between early September and late September every summer. So, the minimum of ice extent is simply defined as the ice edge of percentage roughly say between 15, maybe at 20% ice cover. And then everything inside this ice edge position on the Atlantic side and on the Pacific side is considered to be the ice extent so it’s not really concentration - it’s just the area within the 15% or 20% ice concentration or more. And this ice minimum has been declining quite significantly. The global climate models have predicted ? your audience is probably familiar with this International Panel for Climate Change study, the annual report IV that has been published and presented quite extensively this year, earlier this year in 2007. And actually the panel together with ‘president’ Al Gore have won the Nobel Prize nomination. So those studies from this panel, the multi-national climate simulation study have predicted the ice might be disappearing in summer, the northern summer in the Arctic, maybe sometime by the end of this 21st century.

There are some model simulations, single model simulations, that are suggesting that it could possibly occur as early as 2050 or maybe even as early as 2030. Comparing those models simulations predictions with the satellite observations of the Artic sea ice extent actually shows that most of those models are too conservative predicting the current and the past ice extent changes in the Arctic as has been observed. So the idea is that the climate models - they’re underestimating, they are too conservative in their prediction. What our contribution, our study contribution to this overall topic is that we’re saying that the satellite are only observing the 2-dimensional changes in the sea ice in the Arctic in terms of this ice extent. However we do not have the observations of ice thickness - the third dimension, the vertical dimension - are very limited of the Arctic sea ice. And having those models that we used, we are able to look at the changes associated, not only with the ice extent but also ice thickness and this way we can eventually calculate and try to understand the changes in the total ice volume in the Arctic. And our studies are suggesting that actually the volume and the thickness is decreasing even faster than the aerial observations from satellites. And this way we’re saying that actually if we already have lost probably about 40% volume in the Arctic so far, if we project this trend ongoing for the last 10 - 15 years, we probably will reach zero in summer some time ? mid next decade, I’m sorry.

Matthew Wright: So there’s been other projections from some glaciologists; around 2020. So somewhere in that range. You said 2013 in The New York Times where it was reported, that something between then and 2020 is very like, very in the ballpark and a likelihood.

Dr Wieslaw Maslowski: It’s interesting that the longer we wait and the more we see what is happening, what changes are happening in the Arctic, the sooner people start predicting those changes will completely melt ice in summer in the Arctic - as soon as in the next decade or so.

How utterly depressing and unsurprising. We are faced, yet again, with this dreadful combination of our own ignorance (despite the best efforts of the best climate scientists on the planet) of exactly what we’re doing to the environment with our energy consumption, and our apparent insistence on not making significant changes. We continue to insist on more studies before leaping into action because just enough of us are just too scared or too ideologically incapable of taking the needed steps. Little by little, day by day, year by year, the delayers and deniers win, while the costs of the inevitable responses rise and nature and all of humanity loses.

I know it’s a distinctly unpleasant image, and I sincerely apologize in advance for whatever discomfort it causes any of you, but until someone hands me a better analogy I will continue to say it: We insist on playing Russian roulette, even as the evidence mounts ever higher that there’s more than one bullet in the gun.

If you get a chance, please visit the new TCOE Bulletin Board. There’s a new poll up, Are reviews of bad books a good idea?, and you can start your own discussion topics on anything related to energy and the environment.