Did you think they were?

Exxon knew this decades earlier

drank the Kool-Aid in the IPCC report

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one of their political operatives

I rather like Scribbler's site. It helps people visualize what is really coming and provides balance to scientific sites still blathering a reassuring 2100 carbon dioxide narrative. On an optimism-pessimism scale, Scribbler's realism sits right in the middle.Contrary to what is often claimed, I find the scientific background in the articles reasonably solid and adequately supported by linked sites. I'm a working scientist, 5423 citations. My first questions for folks trash-talking Scribbler's science: how often are your papers cited, are you in good position to judge, do you communicate the issues better if so where?A lot of this is anxiety related, not flawed content. The real problem people have with Scribbler is they fear -- or know -- deep down he is right on target. And this despite significant efforts to making his site non-threatening: Scribbler is not his real name, scribbling hardly suggests authority, those fantasy books on the side panel are not there to promote sales.The New York AG is currently suing Exxon under securities law for failing to disclose climate and stranded-asset risks to shareholders. The real agenda here is not a piddling fine but gaining disclosure. That's court-ordered access to Exxon's internal documents.In those documents, we may learn the recipients of the many tens of millions spent on their disinformation campaign. (Exxon is just one of many companies doing this.) We've met some of them here -- the army of little people who get $5 a post for disrupting forums or getting the top comment on a newspaper climate article.More interesting would be a list of paid-off IPCC members. I will guess a third or more have not disclosed 'conflicts of interest', which in plain english are bribes. Willie Soon, still at his Smithsonian post, just took in another $65k in dark money. http://tinyurl.com/zpx8som Greenpeace just busted a UW fisheries professor for taking millions in undisclosed 'consulting fees' and 'grants'. IPCC members? They were the high value targets. The budget for getting them was unlimited.Back to blue water. We already have plenty, millions of sq km for months each year; the effects are already hard upon us. The response to that has been anxiety-driven denial, variations on open water doesn't count until the whole Arctic Ocean is ice free for all summer five years in a row. Or maximal insolation and blue water extent are not perfectly synched or, pathetically, that the ice will still refreeze in the fall. (Heat gain in summer and retention in winter under dry snow on ice is actually the worst case scenario.)Nature pays no attention whatsoever to our forums or climate model theories. The effects of blue water are already hard upon us, even with current partial clearing. We all know this. The trend is going down, the effects will get increasingly worse. And soon. We all know this. It's time to grasp the nettle, not grasp at straws.We've known for a long time that the Arctic Ocean ice and high latitude permafrost cover would be the first things to go. That's why Neven prioritized them in the first place. Howeverper the documents that have already surfaced.The question is, why are scientists so late getting to the follow-on effects of blue water? If you google the article title that Jai provides, you will find 5 later cites including a Jennifer Francis commentary and her list of best cites. But as Will notes above, this is still exceedingly sparse considering its impending immediacy.I'm skeptical that very many climate scientists http://tinyurl.com/zaefxzo to the extent it was in their specialty. However few would want to take on an expert committee outside their area, so the report had a definite effect on chilling the bounds of polite discussion.Blue water got pushed out to 2050; assuming that, where is the urgency? Well, other things got pushed out to 2100 and beyond yet get vastly more attention and better funding. Why?I attribute this to a large research lobby heavily invested in the CO-only narrative which 'necessitates' ruthless treatment of competing threats (to funding) such as ESAS (resp. bovine/rice/permafrost) methane. Jennifer Francis has also been severely critiqued for meandering off the COstory line. Nowhas suddenly surfaced on the sea ice blog, bashing blue water. So lack of studied consequences can't all be blamed on Exxon.Scientifically speaking, we could be caught totally flat-footed on consequences if extent and volume crash this summer. Better if research resources had been managed proportionally to risk which has long been highest for Arctic sea ice.