Climate experts in the UK and USA led us to believe that the Arctic Ocean would be completely free of ice by the middle of the current decade. This prediction was based on the fact that ice levels fell by 27% in a single year (2006) and climate change was causing an overall increase in temperatures throughout the planet.
Figure 1 shows how much the extent of the ice sheet had diminished by 2012 when compared with the average ice sheet edge since 1981. The prediction appeared to be on course to be proved correct. However, since 2012 the increase in area of the ice sheet has been quite striking. The dashed red line on Figure 1 shows how dramatically things have changed as a result of very rapid refreezing. Note that this was the situation in October 2016 and that the extent of the ice would increase during the ensuing winter.
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