More bad math

Mistaking Numerology for Math
The above article refers to a quote in Nature Science Magazine: 1,211,287 Square kilometers of ice road-accessible Arctic lands that will be unreachable by 2050, a 14% decrease, according to a report online 29 May in Nature Climate Change.

The problem is if you look at current estimates of ice-road accessible land, they are only accurate to 2 or 3 digits. So this number should be 1,200,000 sq. km.

This same data was reported in May as "50000 square miles" from the US and "400000 square kilometers from Canada (single digit accuracy)"

Let's commit some math here: 50000x(1.609344)² = 130,000 sq. km.

So about 530,000 sq. km. is lost from North America, presumably the majority of the rest is lost from Russia.

1,211,287 was not calculated by anyone aware of the accuracy of the numbers they are pushing. Further (as the above article makes clear in the comments) the 14% loss figure means the actual number is 1,200,000 (two digit accuracy).

Further, this ranks up there with the prediction the arctic will be ice free by 2012,2014, 2015, 2040, etc. (the 2012, and 2014 are from Nature.com - the source of the ice road prediction, 2015 is from David Barber of the University of Manitoba).

I predict that in 2015 the ice extent will be greater than 2007 (the minimum) . This would make these ice predictions off by more than 100%.

If your predictions are off by 100% a 7-digit accurate prediction is worse than a joke.