Missing News: Arctic sea ice loss not just reliant on temperature

Back in 2007 when Arctic Sea Ice hit its lowest level in the satellite era ABC reported:
"Sea ice in the northern hemisphere has plunged to the lowest levels ever measured, a US Arctic specialist says, adding that it is likely to be part of a long-term trend of polar ice melt driven by global warming."


Like many aspects of climate science it seems the real story is a little more complicated, as suggested by a new study currently under open review at the journal "The Cryosphere". The paper is titled Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline (Link HERE). 

Interesting ABC Science has failed to provide any information about the unique method of peer review at The Cryosphere that makes reviewers comments available for scrutiny.

The review process involves:

The Cryosphere has an innovative two-stage publication process which involves a scientific discussion forum and exploits the full potential of the Internet to:

• foster scientific discussion;
• enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;
• enable rapid publication;
• make scientific publications freely accessible.

In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access-review by one of the editors are immediately published on the The Cryosphere Discussions (TCD) website. They are then subject to Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referee’s comments (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members of the scientific community (attributed) and the author’s replies are also published in TCD. In the second stage, the peer-review process is completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in TC. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a lasting record of scientific discussion, TCD and TC are both ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.