Remember the artificial panic pervading the CBS "Early Show" just a little over a year ago that, for the first time in history, the North Pole may not be covered with ice sometime during the summer of 2008? Well, not only did it not happen but evidence now shows that Arctic ice has been thickening substantially this year.

And who is making that "heretical" claim? Why Andrew Revkin, the New York Times environment writer. On the heels of his recent "heresy" of quoting noted climatologist Mojib Latif's finding that the world will probably be in for a cooling trend for the next decade or two, Revkin's latest report will probably not sit well with the global warming alarmists: 

The National Snow and Ice Data Center released its summary of summer sea-ice conditions in the Arctic on Tuesday, noting  a substantial expansion of the extent of “second-year ice” — floes thick enough to have persisted through two summers of melting. The result could be a reprieve, at least for a while, from the recent stretch of  remarkable summer meltdowns.

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According to the center, second-year ice this summer made up 32 percent of the total ice cover on the Arctic Ocean, compared with 21 percent in 2007 and 9 percent in 2008. The percentage of ice that was many years old, forming thick pancaked expanses, was at its lowest since satellite observations began 30 years ago. But that could change next year as the second-year ice adds mass through the long winter freeze.

This arctic ice trend which runs counter to the predictions by the global warming alarmists has caused Revkin to toss out a lifeline for help in this "puzzling" situation:

The shifting conditions raise a question. None of the sea-ice specialists  I’ve interviewed since 2000 on Arctic trends ever predicted a straight-line path to an open-water Arctic, but quite a few have stressed the longstanding idea that as white ice retreats, solar energy that would have been reflected back into space  is absorbed by the dark sea, with that heat then melting existing ice and shortening the winter frozen season. I’ve just sent out a query to a batch of experts, asking if the potential ice recovery now raises questions about the importance of that light-dark shift in albedo compared to other dynamics in the Arctic Ocean. I’ll update this post as responses come in.

Hmmm... So as the arctic ice expands, less solar energy would be absorbed into the smaller areas of open sea and more would be reflected  back into space which means...cooling. We now await the rationalizations of the global warming alarmists.

Despite the cooling trend evidence reported on by Revkin, he still can't take that final step of letting go of the sacred global warming dogma...at least in public:

The conditions also bolster the views of ice and climate specialists who have stressed that the  many factors shaping Arctic conditions year by year, from winds and atmospheric pressure to highly variable ocean currents and soot, still dominate the influence of heat trapped by building greenhouse gases. So the “ death spiral of the Arctic ice system” could well be more like a series of descending  loop the loops. Whether the Arctic’s 21st-century journey ends with a  tipping-point style crash or a whimper remains uncertain, but — even with the current recovery — it’s hard to find a researcher probing Arctic ice trends who does not foresee open-water summers, and  all that comes with them, in coming decades, as long as greenhouse gases keep accumulating in the atmosphere.

Of course, if Andrew Revkin ever did seriously question the global warming dogma more forcefully, that could constitute employment endangerment at the Times. Hey, economic times are tough and your humble correspondent understands the necessity of avoiding the dreaded pink slip.  For the time being you can continue to wink coded mixed messages at us, Andrew. We will know where you are coming from despite your public avowals of belief in the global warming faith.

In the meantime, let us at least give Revkin credit for confirming the Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Levels in Satellite Era report that has been ignored by most of the rest of the MSM. ...Wink! Wink!

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.