Polar bears are drowning due to ice loss or Arctic ice has returned to normal. Care to guess which?

Polar bears are pretty good swimmers, so the likelihood of them drowning is slight, but that is not the correct answer. Arctic ice has returned to normal levels for the first time since 2001. Predictions that Arctic ice would completely melt were hyperbole.

IF you thought it was cold in Britain for the time of year, you should see what is happening around the North Pole. Scientists have discovered that the size of the Arctic ice cap has increased sharply to levels not seen since 2001.

A shift in the chilly winds across the Bering Sea over the past few months has caused thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze.

The same phenomenon, known as the Arctic Oscillation...

Over at Watts Up With That, they have constructed a time-line of media reporting on Arctic ice loss.

A timeline for the “breathtakingly ignorant” follows.

2007: record Arctic ice minimum in 2007 – big news, unprecedented, shocking, Navy postgraduate school scientist says Arctic summers to be ice-free ‘by 2013′

2008: ditto, this year’s ice recovery is just a blip, it’s really caught in a “death spiral”

2009: ditto, this recovery for a second year means nothing – Arctic continues death spiral, you people are breathtakingly ignorant

2010: Arctic sea ice approaches normal for this time of year, first time since 2001 – “…reactions to the 2007 melt were overstated…we must be more careful in not reading too much into one event”

This information is hard to square with the NASA GISS claim 2009 was the second hottest year on record. The instrumental temperature record is highly suspect.