Unprecedented, Unequivocal and Accelerating

We are bombarded in the mainstream media (MSM) with these characteristics when the topic of CO2 induced climate change is being discussed. When a climatic event is being offered as an example of our changing climate we should immediately try to determine if this kind of event has happened before; when did it happen in the past; and is it worse than what occurred in the past.

If it happened in the past then it is not unprecedented.

If it happened prior to about 1945 when humans began to add CO2 to the atmosphere in increasing quantities then the climatic event in question is not equivocal. There must have been some cause other than CO2, probably natural.

And if the event under focus is not worse than those of the past then this type of event is NOT evidence of accelerating AGW. 

Sea ice melt in the Arctic has happened before.

"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817

Thanks to the late John Daly for that quote.

Roald Amunsden traversed the Northwest Passage in 1903-1906.

Several US Navy photos  of submarines emerging at the North Pole can be found on the internet for the years 1958, 1959, 1962, 1987.

The above quote and the expedition of Amunsden near the turn of the last century take care of the equivocal description. It warms, it cools. Climate change. It's natural.

Is sea ice melt accelerating? There are many reasons to doubt it. Here is a recent study that addresses the problem in the past . So it is NOT accelerating. 

Climate scares can be easy to disarm. The Arctic climate is highly variable.

Ask yourself why you don't hear much about global warming in the Antarctic?

Perhaps because it is cooling at the South Pole.  

The temperature trends here at South Pole Station are quite puzzling, actually. Interestingly enough, South Pole, since 1957, has been getting a little bit colder every year. We’re actually about 3.5 degrees Celsius [6.3 degrees Fahrenheit] colder now than when we starting taking records back in the late ’50s.

 Climate change. It's natural.