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.
What global warming?
Does that really matter to anyone on this subject? Ice is ice. Just frozen water. It still absorbed ~334000 J/kg to refreeze whether the ice froze fast, slow, with air bubbles or not, hard and clear or in layered due to frothy waves. Meaningless.
The ice (any form) has recovered. Don’t let irrelevant mumble sidetrack you on the search for the truth in science.
Ric Werme (14:28:35) :
I like your first-hand description of various states-of-ice, learned from simply being a boy who did dangerous things, (and likely having a good angel watching over you.) Sometimes I think it is a wonder any boys survive, but most do.
I had some learning experiences on sea ice on the coast of Maine during the very cold winters of 1976-77 and 1977-78. In 1976-77 the ice was especially thick, over six feet thick at its most, however the top two feet were made up of snow that was wet and heavy enough to push the ice down, and cause water to well up through cracks and turn it to slush, which then froze. This upper ice was inferior, and when the spring thaw came the upper ice seemed to turn back to slush. You could walk through slush that was nearly over the tops of your gum boots, with the ice beneath still sound.
However the problem was knowing where that lower ice remained, because it seemed to melt from the bottom up, due to being washed by tidal currents. From above you only saw a flat area of white slush. Underneath there might be two feet of solid ice, where currents were weak, or mere inches of ice, where currents were stronger. (In narrow places, where the twelve foot tides rushed in and out between the shore and islands, the salt water never froze, even in the most extreme cold.)
The closest I came to killing myself was by nearly walking into a place where the ice had utterly melted away from beneath, and there was nothing but floating slush. I was walking at night, and something made me stop, and I flexed my knees, and all the ice around me made a strange squealing noise, so I turned around and headed back the way I came.
A few days later the ice seemed to vanish all at once, leaving nothing but scattered bergs. I assume that, just before the ice-out, a large amount of the harbor-ice had melted from beneath and little remained but floating slush. Once the disintegration began there was little sturdy ice to hold it back. However the sturdy ice that remained was very strong, and we could make boyish rafts out of surprisingly small chunks, and pole them about the mud flats at high tide. Even a piece that was 4 by 8 feet could hold you up. (We never ventured where the poles couldn’t touch the bottom, for we knew we’d get carried away by the currents.)
At any rate, there seemed to be two types of ice. One type swiftly became “rotten” slush in the spring, while a second type remained solid and was the sort of ice which can travel miles and sink Titanics. The first type had its origins in the upper third of the icepack, and the second type had its origins in the lower two-thirds.
I think Dr. David Barber needs some extra funding, so he can hire the likes of you and I to come along on his next trip, to tell him whether the ice he observes is truly “rotten” or not. From what I gathered, reading the blogs of fellows attempting the Northwest Passage last summer, the ice you run into up there is hard, even when it is many small chunks, and isn’t truly “rotten.”
Hmmm. Maybe that’s why Dr. Barber traveled in an icebreaker.
I am beginning to wonder: have none of you ever been on a frozen lake as spring approached?
The ice near shore becomes ‘rotten’ due to partial thawing and thinning? So does the majority of the ice on that lake as melting progresses. Much hiking experience and even snowmobile expeditions into early spring revealed all this decades ago now …
I have seen pollywogs (tadpoles) literally hatch and exist near the stumps and shoreline on inland lakes when the ice had been thick that year and melting occured near and around anything *not* ice in nature that would absorb IR and visible energy directly from the sun.
(Place this in the category of observational as opposed to anecdotal.)
.
.
Did anyone check Recovery.ice to see how much Ice was saved or created?
They might also want to see if the Sea has too much Dihydrogen Monoxide in it. The peer reviewed science shows that there may be a decline in that chemical compound, and the charts are now going to be revised to hide the decline of Dihydrogen Monoxide. Not sure what the extra square miles of beaches will be used for though. Perhaps the deniers can just take a well deserved vacation.
Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a widespread unregulated compound, and may soon join Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen on the Rotten Threatening Chemical list. See this for details: http://www.dhmo.org/
Large quantities of DHMO can also be found in rotten ice, and might be the root cause of Dr. Barber’s statements. Perhaps there was too much of it even found in his office?
An addition to my post above.
What really irks me is a statement on science with no science backup. What’s the density and thickness of the mult-year ice Dr. Barber mentions. How many years in the multi-year ice. What is the thickness and density of the new ice. Etc, etc. No real science. Just more scares and what seems to be propoganda.
To me logically, the Arctic Sea after a historic melt at the top of a warming period would refreeze exactly as he descibed as temperatures return to normal.
Anyone have some thoughts along this line?
Dr. Barber, will you add some science measurements to your claims?
Bob Boulton (18:00:59) :
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!
Doesn’t seem to do the bottom line much harm either … the para starting .. As Booker reported, what has been great for Tata’s bottom line has not been so good for useful for the 1700 workers who recently lost their jobs…
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.
Looking at the weather for the end of the week they might just get something “rotten” from the Arctic – shame really.
The only thing that makes ice rotten seem to be the beholder of the ice, and I was almost pondering this bs all friggin day, but instead I came up with a different type of explanation to the dreaded green house troll, err, effect.
Disregarding every other planet in the solar system, pretty much due to the fact that each planet is an individual planet and so no planet is alike, I focused my mighty grey little trolls solely on earth.
Imagine that.
What’s the most abundant troll in the atmosphere, that also exist in the soil and you to actually, and is rather soluble in water when coupled to other types of hobnobs?
This little troll absorbs electromagnetic wavelength in the extreme ultra violet range, i.e. the neighbor is x-ray at this extreme wavelength.
When the ozone shield is on the up and up this little troll gets less to absorb.
Of course one of these trolls on its own won’t get too excited to produce that much heat.
But then again they do produce heat.
Imagine that of one million trolls in the atmosphere the co2-troll comes in with about 380 to my little troll with “his” 779 999 friends.
Unless each co2-troll can fart heat that is more than 2050 times hotter then my troll with friends can, they can’t effectively join the green house effect and so can’t even be blamed for “rotten ice”.
If one has to blame any type of troll for the absurd “rotten ice” it is the ozone-troll, especially around the poles, on this here little planet.
Wayne, don’t kid yourself; you wouldn’t know the difference between scientific truth and pure nonsense even if you actually tried to work it out. I can’t always do that either, but I do know that you’ve completely ignored density in your brilliant analysis. But you’re not alone; no one here is doing any searching for scientific truth. That actually requires rigour and hard analysis. And I’ve yet to see any hint of that going on here.
About dates, the most logical format is detailed in ISO 8601which is used in many sensible parts of Europe (it’s logical because it follows the big-endian standard used with numbers). The Brits should be using that as well (they have signed it into law via EU) but they have never been very good with standards so it’ll probably take a while until they catch on. Luckily, they’re not as bad as the U.S.A for which there is no hope.
David Barber’s “rotten ice” is simply a version of “hide the decline”, as in “hide the ice”; and the MSM buys it.
Record low here today, -32.6°C
Two points. First, whether the satellites are fooled by rotten ice or not, unless the satellites have changed then everything is relevant, and so we have more ice, rotten or not than previous years.
Second, once the IPCC has settled on a cap ‘n tax to bank role their new one world socialist government what do all these ‘scientists’ think they’ll be needed for. The science is settled, the scientists are redundant going forward. Welcome to the unemployment line losers.
“Former Vice President Al Gore told the conference that new data suggests a 75 percent chance the entire Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summertime as soon as five to seven years from now.”
Weasel words to replace earlier claims that the polar ice will be gone in 5 years? No data posted by the major ice cap monitoring databases comes close to supporting such a claim.
Oh…wait. I forgot that Obama said science will reclaim its rightful place…
OK, we always hear about how temperature affects Arctic ice, but never hear about how the monster ice breakers are affecting the ice. With the Arctic temps not showing much warming in recorded history, it seems that either, ice loss is a normal and natural process, or maybe some other man-type activity is having a significant effect.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/09/arctic-temperatures-what-hockey-stick/
Opps, I almost forgot; with the latest massaging of the temp records, the Arctic data probably now shows appropriate warming!
Stephen
Clive (17:57:24) :
For Rex you might try here:
http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/contactus.html or
here at CBC’s contact page (where it is very likely to be ignored)
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/about/contact/
I live about 1 3/4 hours North of Whistler. It is -20 Deg C right now and more snow for Whistler on the way. Well you never know what the snow will be like 2 months from now. I had some concerns about the El Nino conditions. Will have to see if the conditions strengthens. It is a real stretch that there would be NO natural snow. Too much snow might be a problem too. The mountains are a little higher than the village!!
What he really meant to say was “That rotten ice, it just isn’t melting away like we said it would! Now nobody will believe us!”
I read this site and others like it almost daily. From what I read, many of you are far more knowledgable than I regarding this “science”.
I know this is off topic, but something that bugs me immensely is the discussion of world temperature rise. The claims that the surface temps have risen 0.5 deg. C over the past X years means nothing to me.
Since the temperature rise, I assume a drybulb temperature, without knowing the simultaneous wet bulb temperature (in my estimation) means absolutely nothing in terms of heat (enthalpy – BTU/lb. dry air).
In other words, even if the dry bulb temperature rise over the past X years is correct, why is it significant if the surface HEAT is not known?
To anyone familiar with psychrometrics explain this to me?
If someone chooses to field this question of mine, please let me know at tkette@bex.net. I would love to hear an informed response.
Thanks,
Terry Kette
@hans
You must have missed my mention of density, in my second post. That of course, if we’re going to get very scientific, would be a critical parameter. (Although we don’t have the room here in a blog). But at least I can tell your thinking at science level. My point was vague stories as Dr. Barber’s with no backup data is just a story. The trust of authority in climate science is tempoarily (I hope) gone.
Maybe it’s just freezer burned…
Ralph
I don’t know about the “deceitful” bit, but I ” acquired” my beard in May of 1973
(at Beardz R us). But I dissemble
So let’s get this right, in the spring we get various people posting on here (Sadlov for example) suggesting that the melt is over-estimated by satellite detection because of melt-ponds on the ice surface. However, here we have a well documented study comparing satellite and radar measurements of the ice with in situ measurements illustrating a bias in favor of solid ice in the fall. In the latter case we have almost everyone on here attempting to ridicule the study, interesting!
Rotten ice is described and pictured in this U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document, “OMNI ice codes” .
www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/WaterControl/Districts/MVR/presentations/OMNI_ICE_Manual.ppt
See slides 18 and 19
Larry
Another official reference to rotten ice.
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/forecaster_handbooks/SeaIce/Handbook%20for%20Sea%20Ice%20Analysis%20and%20Forecasting.01.pdf
Also if I recall correctly in the book “call of the wild” (or one of those arctic adventure classics)rotten ice and its hazard to the dog teams crossing rivers is mentioned. As I recall the comment, they mention that late in the spring what looks to be sound thick ice on the rivers and lakes transforms into a weak form of ice composed of vertical needles of ice crystals that do not adhere to each other well (much like shown in slide 18 in the OMNI ppt.) These are serious hazards to the dog teams as they may find that a route that they used routinely for months suddenly has a trap door collapse under the team in what appears to be sound ice.
Larry
Bruce Cobb (14:11:17) :
JonesII (12:39:28) :
Saint Gore again:
Gore: Polar ice may vanish in 5-7 years
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_sc/climate_gore
That’s odd. A year ago (Dec. 13, 2008) he said the ENTIRE north polar ice cap WILL disappear in 5 years, and here he is a year later saying it MAY vanish in 5 to 7 years?
Actually he said ‘may well be gone in 5 years’ so I don’t see the problem.
How will people know what to believe of what he says, if he keeps not only changing the content, but keeps moving the goal posts?
He doesn’t, people like you keep misquoting him!
@Caleb & Larry:
Thanks for some real examples of different ice forms. Really, interesting. I had similar boyhood experiences. Lake freezes deep. Warms, breaks into large chunks. Next cold front. Refreezes the chunks together but not as deep. Very dangerous ice! Can break through it with a canoe let alone an icebreaker!
But the fallacy of the topic of arctic ice is flawed; you need to accurately know the mass of the ice. Sea ice EXTENT is but one parameter. Ice thickness and density in 2D are the missing parameters and would currently be next to impossible to know, except roughly. For as Larry mentioned vertical ice shards with water between can throw huge inaccuracies into such measurements. We are speaking of the heat (joules) it will take to totally melt this arctic ice. Like taking an Earth sized strainer, placing all of the ice in the Arctic sea and squeezing all water out and weighing it. Then such comments being thrown would have some true scientific meaning. But mankind can only roughly estimate. And if the estimates are shaded by agenda, they are meaningless.
Without accurate ice MASS, such statements I read regularly need to be taken with some big grains of salt.
Here is a plausible explanation for what has actually been happening in the Arctic in recent years. It describes the Arctic Dipole, and reads like proper science.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1398
Especially gratifying is the absence of any mention of CO2, evil mankind or fluffy Polar Bears.
You know, what really p*sses me off is that the likes of Hansen and the Team and their worldwide acolytes are fully aware of the real causes of such variability in the Arctic and elsewhere, yet they continue to utter glib sound bites that put mankind and plant food at the centre of anything mildly unusual in the way of weather/climate.
At best that is disingenuous; more likely it’s hypocritical; most probably it’s profoundly dishonest; at the limit – which is where they always go to – it is effectively fraudulent. That is why they have so easily found allies among politicians, the acknowledged experts in trite phrases based on little learning but calculated to resonate in the electorate.
I fear the only way to counter them in communicating the truth with the unscientific majority of the public is not to get too heavily into the science – that hurts people’s brains and makes them switch off.
My local MP in Sydney is Tony Abbott, who has recently become Leader of the Opposition, largely on the basis of opposing the Government’s sneaky attempt to impose an expensive ETS system (= tax) on us, and in which he succeeded, denying the PM a trophy that he was so desperate to take to Copenhagen to impress the grown-ups with. The said Tony Abbott is on record as having said recently in public something along the lines of, “This man-made global warming thing is crap.”
Now that’s the kind of message any Australian can understand. And we are not alone in this.