Will Arctic sea ice collapse in 2014?

There has been some discussion recently about extrapolating Arctic sea ice data, particularly for data relating to annual minimum sea ice. I've been trying which kind of trendline fits best and my conclusion is that a trendline pointing at 2014 fits the data best (image left). The respective dataset, on the left underneath, was produced by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) developed at Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, and is displayed below interactively (hover over blue line to see the respective volume data for that year). As mentioned in the discussion, some ice may persist close to Greenland for a few years more, since Greenland constitutes a barrier that holds the sea ice in place. Similarly, it is suggested that natural variability could prolong the ice longer than expected. However, such arguments offer no reason to rule out an imminent collapse of the sea ice, since natural variability works both ways, it could bring about such a collapse either earlier or later than models indicate. In fact, the thinner the sea ice gets, the more likely an early collapse is to occur. It is accepted science that global warming will increase the intensity of extreme weather events, so more heavy winds and more intense storms can be expected to increasingly break up the remaining ice in future, driving the smaller parts out of the Arctic Ocean more easily. Much of the sea ice loss already occurs due to sea ice moving along the edges of Greenland into the Atlantic Ocean. Could you think of any reason why Arctic sea ice would NOT collapse in 2014?

Related:
Arctic sea ice volume on track to reach zero around 2015
Greenland is melting at incredible rate
Arctic Sea Ice
When the sea ice is gone

Discussion: Should patent law apply to geo-engineering?

David Keith, a Harvard University professor and an adviser on energy to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he and his colleagues are researching whether the federal government could ban patents in the field of solar radiation, according to a report in Scientific American.

Some of his colleagues last week traveled to Washington, D.C., where they discussed whether the U.S. Patent Office could ban patents on the technology, Keith said.

"We think it's very dangerous for these solar radiation technologies, it's dangerous to have it be privatized," Keith said. "The core technologies need to be public domain."

As suggested by Sam Carana, a declaration of emergency, as called for by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), could be another way to deal with this issue.

A declaration of Emergency could give governments the power to overrule patents, where they stand in the way of fast-tracking geo-engineering projects proposed under emergency rules.Thus, patents don't need to be banned, prohibited or taken away; instead, patent will continue to apply in all situations other than the emergency situation, while new patents could also continue to be lodged during the emergency period.

Even where patent are directly applicable to proposed projects, patent law would still continue to apply, the emergency rules would merely allow governments to proceed in specific situations, avoiding that projects are being held up by legal action, exorbitant prices or withholding of crucial information.

A declaration of emergency could also speed up projects by removing the need to comply with all kinds of time-consuming bureaucratic procedures, such as the need to get formal approvals and permits from various departments, etc. This brings us to the need to comply with international protocols and agreements. If declared internationally, a declaration of emergency could overrule parts of such agreements where they pose unacceptable delays and cannot be resolved through diplomacy.

The issue is also discussed at the Geoengineering group at Google.