2012-12-31✗ false
Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3, one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover.
False. Nothing close has happened: NSIDC put the September 2025 minimum at 4.60m sq km, tenth lowest in the satellite record and still more than four times the 1m sq km “ice-free” threshold. The projection was offered as a hedged lower bound rather than a central estimate — a caveat the coverage of it did not always carry.