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.
Clive (10:09:44) :
Think Mansbridge will do a interview with Steve McIntrye or Mitchell Taylor? Never live to see it.
Went to CBC to put a request in for Steve though.
http://www.cbc.ca/mansbridge/contact.html
Maybe all the Canucks here can put a litte pressure on and I might live to see it!!
New study: Arctic ice is rotten (Anchorage Daily News)
====
Funny you should mention the ADN. Locals know it by 3 different names:
the daily snooze
the daily worker
sacramento’s best newspaper
it is always biased, and quoting it is generally a waste of everyone’s brain cells. BTW, Anchorage is about 700 miles south of the Arctic Ocean. ADN reporters can see winter ice floes in Cook Inlet, but they aren’t going to see anything above the Arctic Circle unless they catch a flight.
NickB. (14:10:07) : Richard (13:38:28) :
You got a link for that?
I do. Its actually from right here in WUWT, though I got it and copied it from elsewhere. But doing a search right now – here’s what I found:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
Anthony – you have to put an edit function on these comments for the typo and spelling challenged!!
That should be Steve McIntyre and ” a little pressure”
“Rotten ice” eh?
It rings a bell. UK visitors will surely recall “The wrong kind of snow”, from 1991.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4434770/Snow-Britain-Wrong-kind-of-snow-strikes-again.html
I just find it amusing when so many people, so called experts all have their own idea on what is going on with melting glaciers and sea levels rising. The predictions are now estimated to be between 1.5mm and several meters plus.
No concensus there either.
It does not mean that I agree with the predictions. A chrystal ball would serve them better I think.
I have no problem with all the reporting of the climate changing – but I do cringe when someone tries to connect anything happening to the climate to an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
New parent to child proverb: “Do not eat rotten or yellow snow.”
Perhaps we need to send an expedition to examine all that “rotten ice”. How about sending some “rotten” scientists? Carlin 2? That towed array must be fixed by now.
Richard111 (14:37:13) : PS if its cold and chilly there in the antipodes, its not particularly warm here in NZ, though we are supposed to be in Summer. There is a glorious sun today but it hasnt quite got rid of our winter of discontent.
Someone tell me the definition of “scientist”, I think it changed when I was not looking.
Seems to be anyone that can buy a cruise ticket.
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
Richard (16:25:59) :
TY sir!
nigel jones (16:26:49) :
The “wrong snow” – is that like putting on “the wrong trousers”?
Ba-da-dum!
@latitude
Science, according to a very respectable source, it might even be somewhat peer reviewed, has this to say on that topic:
I think that covers it.
We should not forget the danger of cornered rats, an while I consider it unfair to compare the warmists with rats (I have known some smart and friendly rats) thete rats are well and truly cornered and their snouts are finding the gravy train leaving without them, they will get very nasty indeed, take care and prod with a very long stick!
I was a bit quick there, “scientist“. Same eminent source.
“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.”
(my caps)
I wonder if he is aware that there is a near direct correlation in the number of active ICE BREAKERS and the loss of ice that they are claim.
In order to get rotten ice you first start with rotten water. Of course it’s rotten. That’s what happens after a deluge of dead polar bears falling from the sky. And don’t forget those dead baby seals and cute little kittens 😉
Are climate related scientists who are being paid with tax dollars required to disclose their personal carbon credit investment portfolios?
LOL, Gore busted yet again
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6956783.ece
…In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore…
Another side effect of climate change.
Climate makes scientists become related to other scientists.
You’re all going to “rot” in hell for not believing. You climategate heathens…Algod is going to strike you down with lightning, (Does lightning rot too???)
Steve Hempell … “Think Mansbridge will do a interview with Steve McIntrye or Mitchell Taylor? Never live to see it.”
Good one Steve … not snowball’s chance in hell. Once upon a time, I use to like Peter M. He is a puppet and can’t jeopardize his million-dollar salary. So he does what the ecoweenie producers want him to do.
BTW … Thanks for the Mansbridge link. Will use it. Do you have one for Rex as well?
You know what’s going to be funny? Seeing these idiots in 20 years and they will still be beaking off about the Arctic melting at unprecedented rates.
Mind you, everyone will have forgotten how wrong they all were, won’t they? ☺ I’ve not forgotten what IPCC said about sea levels in 1992.
Steve…you will get a kick out of this…(posted in another thread earlier) ☻ ☻ What an idiot.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/10/20/skihills-warming.html
THEN read this ☻ ☻
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Whistler+Blackcomb+sets+November+snow+record/2290797/story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3a+canwest%2fF259+(Vancouver+Sun+-+News+%2f+Vancouver
‘Rotten Ice’ sounds like desperation. Everything seems to be falling apart for the ‘warm-mongers’. ManMadeGlobalWarming has been a classic bubble, but it looks like it is bursting. Most of the public believed in it because it was presented as ‘fact’ by the news services, but the CRU emails opened the chink of doubt. Copenhagen seems to be heading for complete failure, and the unusually cold weather in the US can’t be helping.
Also Obama’s ‘cap and trade’, and the EPA’s outlawing of CO2, will be concentrating the public’s mind : if in the middle of a recession, with unemployment in the US at over 17%, you introduce policies to close down manufacturing it will not go down well unless the reasons are 100% valid and extremely urgent.
If, as here in the UK, CO2 created to produce goods abroad is not counted, the policy means that closing manufacturing in the US and moving it to China or similar will make you a ‘Good Guy’ environmentalist!
I gather there are elections in the US next year, best of luck to any politician supporting Obama’s views on climate!
PS. It will be amusing if the kids from Copenhagen can’t get back home due to the weather. I assume they don’t drive so they will be dependent on public transport.
Richard (11:57:40) :
PS those Cryosphere snaps left me thunderstruck for a second. Why cant americans learn how to write their dates logically? The day comes before the month then the year
The “American” date format more closely resembles our speech, where first is specified the object (group) then part of the object (subgroup or item), like how instead of saying “door of the car” we would say “car door,” or instead of “the crystals of sodium chloride” it would be “the sodium chloride crystals.” This is also in agreement with biological classifications which run large to small, thus “homo sapiens” instead of “sapiens homo,” for example.
It also lends itself well to the naming of computer files by date, as one would be more likely to scan a directory for files for a month than for the occurrence of a numbered day throughout a year. Thus with month first “03xx.dat” for the March files is quick to mark and copy, while hunting down all the “xx03.dat” files would be less so. The reverse of the European system, a year-month-day format, is even more convenient, as “20090306.dat” would nicely auto-arrange in a single directory with the other similar files.
Note we will be keeping “the 4th of July” as that is recognized as a designation rather than a mere date. There is about as much chance of getting us to call it otherwise as there is of getting people to talk about their “party at night right before the first of January.”