I guess because it is "independent," we can't question its conclusions.
If you can't falsify a hypothesis, I think it makes it a wild guess.
It's a little hard to understand if there is an actual question in this question, but I think you asked something similar in your answer to another question, so I'll attempt to answer that.
Just saying something like "The harsh winter/spring this year is a result of diminished arctic sea ice" would just be idle speculation if there is not some science to back it up. Some scientists may make such statements based on their experience and intuition regarding atmospheric phenomena. I am not one that likes to do that. The best way to test a hypothesis like that (probably the only practical way) is to run models with identical initial conditions except for sea ice extent and see what differences arise. Whether people have actually done that, I don't know. It would surprise me if they have, since the season is still ongoing. However they may very well have already run numerical experiments like that in the past, so they know the results.
In your other answer you also asked about how you could have the same thing happening in some prior year with more extensive sea ice. Certainly there may be different ways to arrive at the same endpoint, so you can't use that as an argument against a hypothesis. Again, the best way to test would be with models.
EDIT: Empirical evidence is great and of course it should be used when available, but how long are you going to wait for it to accumulate? 20 years? 100 years? 1000 years? And when you have it you have to be able to tease out the contributions from many uncontrolled variables, models give you a way to run controlled experiments in a scientist's lifetime. The models give you a way to interpret the empirical evidence that is unavailable without them.
That is stupid last year was a mild winter happens once or twice a decade
In the 1990s Missouri had a mild winter the next year the highs were 10 and lows -10
belows .
And its called a Artic Oscillation not melting ice caps . The warmers are getting desperate .
All they see is high taxes and this $$$$
The Arctic ice during the period they are talking about (not summer ice) is only slightly less than normally, and is the same as last year and the year before.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecove...
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/...
To me that is an outright lie.
Anyone with any knowledge on the subject will tell you it was caused by a negative arctic oscillation.
If my hypothesis is correct, the difference this winter with last is weather.
Harvey Mushman
If global warming is so easy to disprove, how come each and every one of these 174 arguments fails to do so?
http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Edit
Kevin and Jennifer know about weather. But if you think they don't, go one better than sending them an email. Publish a paper.
Science ≠ journalistic hype ≠ your lame Wattsup copycat+wannabe anti-science spin of journalistic hype
By the way, have you EVER asked a question here that isn't a crappy anti-science trick?
It is robust "hypothesis" that you are actually intelligent enough to know the difference between trend and variation, but shamelessly dishonest enough to deny that difference whenever it suits your copy-past anti-science deception of the week.
I think the hypothesis now is that no matter what happens, it is irrefutable proof of Climate Change. Most alarmists have lost touch with reality and are certifiably psychotic IMO.
Alarmist: "Children won't know what snow looks like in the UK."
Skeptic: "The UK just had one of it's snowiest seasons in history."
Alarmist: "Yes, that fits in perfectly with the CAGW hypothesis."
Skeptic: "How?"
Alarmist: "Warmer weather increases moisture, resulting in more snow."
Skeptic: "They've also had one of their coldest winters as well."
Alarmist : "Yes, that fits in perfectly with the CAGW hypothesis."
Skeptic: "So less snow, more snow, warmer temps and colder temps all fit in with the CAGW hypothesis?"
Alarmist: "Yes, exactly."
My hypothesis is that global warming was too easy to disprove for the layman. Too specific. Which is why it was rebranded as ACC. Then you can blame every bit of weather you dislike on ACC.
2013 - "Scientists Link Cold Spring to Dramatic Sea Ice Loss"
""The sea ice is going rapidly. It's 80 percent less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic," said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science." http://www.wunderground.com/news/sea-ice-loss-20130326
2012 - "Unusually Warm Winter, But Is It Climate Change?"
"So mild weather this winter hasn't come out of the blue. "It's consistent with the idea that global warming is going on," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the independent National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo." http://www.livescience.com/18868-mild-winter-climate-change.html
You may be thinking there is a sort of contradiction here and a good hypothesis doesn't seem likely. However, you'd be wrong as explained from that first article:
"The hypothesis that wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere would explain both the extremes of heat and cold, say the scientists."
If an hypothesis is very difficult to falsify, does that make it robust?
