Remember Gore's Prediction about Ice disappearing, After brief drop, Arctic Sea Ice levels return to long term average

Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts:

Barring an about face by nature or adjustments, it appears that for the first time since 2001, Arctic Sea ice will hit the “normal” line as defined by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) for this time of year. . . .

An example of the hysteria that had existed can be seen here.

UPDATE: UK Daily Mail: "Increase in Arctic ice confounds doomsayers"

The scientists who released the data stressed that last month's rise was part of yearly variations in ice cover and could not be taken as a sign that global warming is coming to an end. . . .
The unusual trend last month is revealed in figures published by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.
In a typical year, Arctic ice cover peaks in mid-March and starts to fall as milder weather arrives.
But this year, levels continued to grow in the second half of March. Dr Mark Serreze, of the NSlDC, said parts of the Arctic were going through an unusually cold spring - but that other areas were warmer than normal.
He added: 'What this doesn't show is any indication that global warming is over. If you look at the Arctic as a whole we might get to average amounts of sea ice for the time of year. But the ice is thin and quite vulnerable and it can melt very quickly.'
The best measure of the health of the Arctic was not only the amount of cover, but also the thickness of ice, he said.
But Dr David Whitehouse, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation think-tank, said: 'The recent observations make the 2007 projections that the region would be ice free by 2013 look very unrealistic.'

UPDATE: From Bret Stephens at the WSJ.

As recently as October, the Guardian reported that scientists at Cambridge had "concluded that the Arctic is now melting at such a rate that it will be largely ice free within ten years." This was supposedly due to global warming. It brought with it the usual lamentations for the grandchildren.

But in March came another report in the Guardian, this time based on the research of Japanese scientists, that "much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is [due] to the region's swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming." It also turns out that the extent of Arctic sea ice in March was around the recorded average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The difference between the two stories has little to do with science: There were plenty of reasons back in October to suspect that the Arctic ice panic—based on data that only goes back to 1979—was as implausible as the now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers. But thanks to Climategate and the Copenhagen fiasco, the media are now picking up the kinds of stories they previously thought it easier and wiser to ignore. . . .