I was wondering what folks on this forum thought of this. Was it a knee-jerk reaction of scientists to the severe winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11 in the U.S? Last winter, there was warmer than normal conditions in the Arctic and cold in Asia and Europe. The U.S/Canada were the only main midlatitude areas that were warm in the NH last winter. See 850 mb temp anomalies below. Basically for those new to this idea...loss of sea ice leads to more heating of Arctic Ocean and disrupts the jet strea