There’s plenty of stories about how Arctic sea ice is now “rotten”. There’s darn few that talk about yearly comparisons or what other scientific outlets are saying about the claim.
As many WUWT readers know, 2007 was the minimum year of summer extent in sea ice, a year that is routinely held up as a cause for alarm. Another cause for alarm has been the “decline of multi-year sea ice”. Most recently we’ve gotten claims of “rotten ice” in the news media. That “rotten” ice is “duping the satellites” they say. This all from one fellow, Dr. David Barber on a ship that took a short expedition in the Arctic and observed what he called “rotten ice”. Here’s Dr. Barber using the poster child for sea ice loss in a presentation.
Seems that his “rotten” message resonated, even the media in Alaska (who can observe sea ice on their own) are saying it: New study: Arctic ice is rotten (Anchorage Daily News)
Over at the Greenbang Blog, they say that: ‘Rotten’ sea ice creates false impression of Arctic recovery
They cite:
Satellite data in 2008 and 2009 appeared to indicate that Arctic sea ice cover had started to grow again after reaching a record low, leading some to claim that global warming was reversing. However, University of Manitoba researcher David Barber found that wasn’t the case after he viewed the ice firsthand this September from an ice breaker travelling through the southern Beaufort Sea.
What the satellites had identified as thick, multiyear ice, it turned out, was in fact thin, “rotten” ice, Barber and his colleagues discovered.
This apparently was the conclusion from watching Dr. Barber’s YouTube video:
You can read Barber’s study here (Word DOC file)
So if the satellites are “duped” into seeing more ice than actually exists, then 2007 ice must have been really, really, rotten:
Compare for yourself, here.
Looks like it has firmed up since then. So no matter how you spin it, there has indeed been improvement in sea ice in 2007. Going from “really, really rotten” in 2007 to simply “rotten” Arctic sea ice in 2009 is definitely an improvement.
One other note, if this “rotten ice” problem and satellite duping proposed by Dr. Barber is in fact real, I’d fully expect that the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) would make some sort of announcement or post a caveat about it on the “Arctic Sea Ice News and analysis” web page where they present the satellite data. I couldn’t find anything on that page about “rotten ice” or satellite data being inaccurate.
Looking further, I used a Google search for “rotten” within NSIDC’s web site (available from their search tool in the upper right of their web page) reveals no recent documents or web pages using that word. Odd.
OK maybe Cryosphere Today? Nope nothing there either.
JAXA‘s sea ice page? Their News page? Not a peep.
Nansen’s Arctic ROOS sea ice page? Or their news page? All quiet on the Arctic front.
Maybe the Danish Meteorological Institute (in Copenhagen no less) sea ice page? Surely, something must be “rotten” in Denmark, no? Alas, they don’t mention it either.
Gosh, the Arctic ice is rotten, the satellites are duped, and none of the major scientific organzations that track sea ice have anything to say about it?
It seems Dr. Barber’s conclusions are being left out in the cold by his peers.
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The pole is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t! What can you do to shake the conviction of these people? Rotten ice isn’t the issue here but rotten science. The only decline they should worry about is the decline in the willingness of the public to accept their spin without question.
It’s worse than we thought.
They cannot compare the “rotten” ice this year to the amount of “rotten” ice in years past, because this ad hoc theory was not around then. So to claim that “rotten” ice is a sign of climate change is unfounded.
Hudson Bay seems to be the major difference this year.
Seem like this trip was a one shot deal. No comparison to previous surveys and contrary to the Polar 8 flight. The ice is normally at its minimum (and probably its rottenest) in September. Nothing to see here, lets move along. (unless his funding is running out)
Sooo…one 2 minute utube posting from one researcher is the basis for all these news articles and facts?
I guess they’ve just abandoned peer-review altogether!
Or maybe they just want to get out a shot before cop15 is done to try to get the one world government kicked off.
The only thing rotten here is the ‘rotten ice’ theory. Ice does not rot.
There is no physical mechanism for it. It may melt (fat chance at the below zero temps up there) and it may be chewed up by constantly running ice breakers through it to see how thick it is, though 😉
Rotten really refers to the science of global warming advocates.
What the hell is “rotten ice”?
Sounds like a very scientific measurement. I’d also like to see Barber’s comparison of 2007 rotten ice to 2009 rotten ice to show the increase. (Thanks, Anthony for the CT comparison). This is grasping at straws and nothing else.
What’s next? Rotten ice with inferior characteristics because it lacks cultural diversity?
Anthony,
Not so sure what i’m supposed to be looking at. Does the whitish patches on the purple ice imply thinner ice? Also, neat how it looks like solid ice between Russia and Alaska, but in 2009, we seem to be missing a bit of ice north of Canada. Wonder why, also looks like Russia is also under much more snow/ice cover then 2007.
Warmist: “There’s less and less Arctic Sea ice every year.”
Skeptic: “Really, isn’t there more this year than there was in 2007?”
Warmist: “Yes, but it’s rotten.”
Wait a minute! The thick multi-year ice is disappearing but not the “thin, rotten” one???
Is it me or does this guy look disturbingly like Doc Briffa? Makeup!
So now more ice is actually less ice,
global cooling is global warming and
the people who scream repent world is going to end! are now the sane ones.
Can some one tell me when I fell into 1984?
“How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston.
Sometimes they are five.
Sometimes they are three.
Sometimes they are all of them at once.
You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
Ice is ice is ice. They should grow up and recognise when they have made a mistake,
Good reference thanks. Always nice to see another view. Barber was on Mansbridge “One on One” the other night and that gets a wide coverage. Oh well.
But a comment/question. The current image shows Hudson Bay being mainly open. I wonder if that is accurate. Comments on HB?
Will we still be hearing that the ice has completely gone … when it is still there? Seems so.
Thanks
Clive
From the frozen plains of western Canada where cold temperature records have been shattered this week. Brrrrrrrrrrr
For a lack of better scientific word, they used the word “rotten” to talk about porous ice. In any case, more “rotten” ice is still more ice. What do these guys know about ice recovery? Maybe this is how it works, by expansion first of porous ice…
Rick (10:03:17) :
The accompanying document says ‘Geophysical Letters’, In Press. I guess that journal is peer-reviewed, what do you think Rick?
Crosspatch,
I think all of the ice went over to the Bering Strait.
The PR guy for the AGW priesthood is falling asleep at the switch. “Rotten Ice” is a poor bit of jargon. They should have found the proper eskimo word for it and labeled it as “distressed”.
“”As we went further and further north, we saw less and less polar bears because this ice wasn’t even strong enough for the polar bears to stand on,””
So the ice WAS strong enough for the polar bears to stand on in the south, but the ice wasn’t strong enough as they went further and further north????
That doesn’t make any sense.
“he viewed the ice firsthand this September from an ice breaker travelling through the southern Beaufort Sea.”
I flunked geography at school but I seem to remember that the Southern Beaufort Sea lies somewhere below the 75th parallel. Would not this be the very edge of the arctic ice pack?
Would be much more convincing if he had sailed, say, event 6 or 7 degrees furrther North or perhaps the ice there wasn’t rotten enough.
In a weird way, I’m not bothered by this – it shows variance and promotes debate.
I’m a big watcher of political polling data and it’s just the same – the results change when using slightly different methodologies such as when the research calls are made [get more home-makers/retired/unemployed], past voting behaviour [again depends on the time of the call – one pollster shows a bias to the government payroll vote], intention to vote [tends to bias older voters who also tend to be more conservative in outlook], am I in a marginal seat and may vote for a candidate I don’t want to win in order to keep another which is worse?
If climate scientists applied the same level of rigour to stats that people like me apply to betting on political outcomes, perhaps we’d have a much better chance of knowing what was really going on.
Something is rotten in Denmark too
As a skeptic, I can’t say I find any comfort in this. He’s been studying it for twenty years, had thought it was recovering and now predicts it’s receding due to warming.
What’s there to crow about?