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.
Of course, there is such a thing as rotten ice and of course, Mr. Barber has seen it many times in 25 years of researching Arctic ice, even if he does only do a two-week trip a year. So, like Roy Spencer, I don’t see why he says he’s never seen it before.
His conceptual schematic looks like large fragments of multi-year ice. He says the edges are rounded. That means they’ve been around for a while and haven’t disintegrated further. He calls it a conglomerate, which is not accurate, partly because it’s only one fragment thick at any point and in September there was only a 2 inch skin of new ice over the top. By now, it will be looking a lot more like conglomerate, with a matrix of new ice cementing it all together and nobody will be cruising through it at 23 knots next year.
He’s obviously got a point to make; he can’t resist preaching about down-welling IR, though I note he didn’t measure up-welling LW at all.
He says: “Values of down-welling longwave ranged from 307 – 313 W mP2P illustrating the important role of the longwave flux to surface warming.”
Ric Werme (14:28:35) :
E.M.Smith (10:03:17) :
> The only thing rotten here is the ‘rotten ice’ theory. Ice does not rot.
> There is no physical mechanism for it.
How long have you lived in California?
My whole life. Never heard ‘rotten’ applied to ice, despite years of skiing and lots of time spent in Tahoe show and ice. Must be a regional thing. Dad was from Iowa. Spent some time there and in Texas. Lots of ‘oral history’ about Iowa winter. Again, never had “rotten” applied to ice. Just biological stuff (and human morality: deals, scoundrels, etc.)
Yes, I’m familiar with snow and ice weakening as it melts. But rotten?…
(Then again, we use “snuck” and not “sneaked” and “crufty” is common too.)
http://www.idniyra.org/articles/ice_grain.htm
“Water ice freezes into crystal families called grains. The melting takes place between the grain boundaries of the ice. The melting point of water is slightly lower at the grain boundary because the crystal structure is less perfect there.”
In the Yukon, the lake-ice honeycombs in the Spring and we always called it rotten.
Phil. (21:46:59) : Actually he (Al Gore) said ‘may well be gone in 5 years’ so I don’t see the problem.
The problem is it may well not be gone in 5 years.
..people like you keep misquoting him
Like “I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.” ? or “The interior of the Earth is extremely hot a few million degrees”? (to be fair he didnt say Celsius or Fahrenheit so we’ll grant him Fahrenheit)
He also gave the impression that you could drill down 2 kms anywhere and run a turbine off the heat from that depth. Maybe for a (rather expensive) science fair project, but to solve our energy problems? I dont think so.
There are many things that he doesnt actually say but he gives the impression of some terrible imminent danger, like showing London or the statue of liberty under water. The fact is the message deceives.
“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.”
Actually science doesn’t always require rigour or analysis. There’s a couple of Nobel prizes awarded basically for getting lucky (background cosmic radiation they weren’t looking for, Fleming and penicillin). Others awarded for massive insight, regardless of analysis (Einstein, recalling what he actually won it for, which wasn’t relativity).
But anyway, science is about prediction, reproduce-ability and fitting with better known data. It is therefore quite easy to falsify bad science when it fails to predict accurately, be reproduce the same result or make sense in terms of what we already know.
Say I allege that the cause of global warming is the alignment of the planets (i.e. Astrology). I bet you can discard that without any rigorous analysis. Actually I bet you discard that without any analysis at all. Because you know that it has no predictive value and contradicts all physics.
Likewise [snip] don’t have to come up with a better theory for GW. Really, we don’t. We can merely point out the IMO fatal flaws in the CO2 concept and stop there. I know it’s not fair that we don’t have to do the same rigorous analysis as the ones who want to prove it, but that’s science for you.
If the ice was too “rotten” for the polar bear to walk on, how did it get out there?
Over at the Greenbang Blog, they say that: ‘Rotten’ sea ice creates false impression of Arctic recovery
What they meant by that was, “That dirty, rotten, increasing sea ice is ruining the false impression we’re trying to create about the Arctic’s recovery.”
David Barber seems to be tteading on thin ice.
Phil. (20:48:34) :
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!
At least here, as you pointed out, it is an assortment of people offering up contradictory opinions. Mr. Barber seems entirely capable of handling that task all by himself. He spends most of his introductory briefing us on the what we need to know about the recent history of the Arctic ice, liberally peppering his presentation with nice precise measurement derived from satellite data and then spends the rest of the paper trying to prove that the satellites can’t be trusted. He is nice enough to offer us a nice clue to the solution of the quandary of the bad match between satellite projections and reality though.
” Canadian Ice Service (CIS) digital ice charts were employed for real-time planning of station locations and sailing routes during the cruise. CIS digital ice charts are based on expert manual interpretation of Radarsat-1 data (the primary data source since 1996), NOAA-AVHRR and Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data and in situ aerial and marine surveys. They include total sea ice concentration and partial concentrations by type. ”
While the erratic performance of the satellites throughout the year should cause any reasonable person to be cautious of placing too much confidence in any of their data output, they might also have reason to wonder just how expertly that “expert manual interpretation” was performed in constructing Mr. Barber’s ice charts. That being said i actually agree with many of his points. I posted several comments last winter questioning the ability of the satellites to determine ice age and have often expressed the view that the age of the ice in the Arctic has declined dramatically since the 80’s. Of course, I tend toward the view that the decline is mostly unrelated to AGW, see my post above for elaboration on that point.
Dave Wendt (13:21:54) :
One wonders how “rotten” the arctic ice was during that Medieval Warming Period the CRU “Hockey Team” tried so hard to get rid of.
Given that Greenland was actually green at the time (hence the name), the Vikings may have actually sailed an ice-free open sea at that time – at least in the summer.
What is rotten here is the trashy agenda-driven pseudoscience, the GIGO computer models, and the croaking evil toads that run the International Banking Cartels and who fund the AGW parasites through their interlocking foundations, and now want to tax the GDP of every nation on Earth, tax every financial transaction world-wide, and tax many other things including the very breath of every individual.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is simply their latest vehicle for advancing their Malthusian population reduction agenda – we “Useless Eaters” emit too much carbon, you see. The Earth would be so much better off if most of us died – or were never born in the first place.
Anthony
That’s getting a little to close to Gavins little jokes about Yamal!
There appears to be an error in the article. The text cites the Anchorage Daily News, but the URL links to the Alaska Dispatch – the two publications are not the same.
What’s going on with IARC-JAXA? It is now five days since they posted arctic ice data. Actually, they posted the data as of 12/13, but subsequently took down the data for 12/11, 12/12, and 12/13, and have not posted since.
I hate freezer burned rotten ice, it ruins the drink. What is the solution? Melt it down and freeze new ice. Happens every year.
What good is the peer-review process when your peers all think the same way? If the mob boss is on trial and the jury is packed with mobsters, he is going to get off.
They need to discredit the emerging notion that there really is no such thing as “multi year ice” and that instead, ice “obducts” and shortens via compressive stress to become more indurated and resistant to melting. Also, of course, the morphing of snow deposited on top into ice especially at the equatorward edges of the pack (where moisture is more available). What I have described explains how we went from a low slightly greater than long term average areal distribution over only a couple or three years multiple times in history. The pack can shape shift quickly and does so by “going vertical” – obduction, shortening, ridging – all of these behaviors reduce areal distribution and thicken. By throwing out this “rotten ice” notion they divert attention from the behaviors I’ve described.
from a low TO A slightly greater than long term average …
Thanks for all those remaining true to science, when the science we are using has been turned into politics.
Also, yes, humans are major polluters and we must clean that up, but that does not equate making billionaires out of thin air (the FEDS job), reducing crops and creating food shortages, and losing control to a UN global gov–the UN is totally a machine dedicated to one thing… world gov control no matter, as we have seen with vaccines, food programs, AGW…etc.
What if all those billions were actually used to force polluters to actually clean up the messes they are making on our planet? How many billions were spent on air travel alone for these fraudsters? Makes me sick.
Now, I hope everyone will question our gov, and make damn sure the UN is NOT being used any longer for our policy making. Don’t play the D/R, L/C game, because if not AGW, they are up to something else. Hopefully eyes will be open and the fraud, and easy ride over us, the commoners who can’t live without tyrants, will END… about time.
Check out this clown… what planet is this one on? I can’t make a post because I am NOT invited. Can someone please destroy this man… or at least wake him up from his dream state. I think he must be in bed with al gore and repeating the nonsense coming from the gores dream.
Confidence In Science Of Global Warming Grows Despite ‘Climate-gate’
By David Moulton
Director of Climate Change Policy, The Wilderness Society
http://copenhagen.nationaljournal.com/2009/12/confidence-in-the-science-of-g.php
Whenever I hear something that I think is climate BS, I flip the scenario around and see if I could use the statement the other way. I.E. If we were in a prolonged period of global cooling and the alarmism was that we were heading into another ice age — and the trend was, for a long time, Arctic sea ice growth, and the past 3 years had shown a sudden melting after many years of ice growth. Could you imagine the alarmists scientists and media in this alternate universe saying “Yes, the artic ice has stopped its growth trend over the last few years, but the ice that remains is very thick, solid, high quality ice so we remain confident that the prediction for more years of ice growth remains a threat.” I could very much envision that.
I think if you can do this with any alarmist statement that comes out, then the statement can be considered reactionary to what has happened and not a predictor of things to come.
I hope that no one brings any of that rotten ice down here to the southern hemisphere. Help! Our ice needs vaccination.
Here in the land where all the women are strong and the children are above average, we know all about ‘rotten ice’. That’s how idiots lose their fishing shacks and SUVs.
Moderator: Can something be done to remove the sensitivity of the damned “Tab” key? I hit it by accident and my posting-in-progress vanished.
I was saying that I may be too late in posting for most readers to see this message, but…..Dr. Barber was interviewed on the CBC radio science show Quirks and Quarks in late November. He may be heard via:
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/09-10/qq-2009-11-28.html
I listened with interest. I believe that he said that where the icebreaker was travelling was normally thick ice. Whether this meant only that the ice mass had drifted away under wind or not I don’t know. But I filed away his interview as information to be listened to.
IanM
KDK (08:25:29) :
“Confidence In Science Of Global Warming Grows Despite ‘Climate-gate’
By David Moulton
Director of Climate Change Policy, The Wilderness Society”
This is rather odd, Moulton is the Director of Climate Change Policy AND Conservation Funding.
He’s a democratic lawyer activist:
http://wilderness.org/about-us/experts/david-moulton
kadaka (18:02:40) :
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.
Those examples are misleading. In this case the group is year and the subgroups month and day. To be logical then would you say 2009, December the 16th?
Mooloo (01:07:16) :
I understand what you’re saying, but go look at RC – they have been winning the conversation DESPITE their inability to predict anything, despite not being falsifiable. We are debating with people who do not respect the basic tenants of good science:
“1.) It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
2.) Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory.
3.) Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4.) A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5.) Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability; some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6.) Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence.”)
7.) Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a “conventionalist twist” or a “conventionalist stratagem.”)”
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/Critical_thinking/Science_pseudo_falsifiability.html
If we think the instrument records are bogus, skewed group-think products, then to really stick a fork in it, we need to come up with an alternative product. Absolutely nothing against the great work by Anthony et al on the Surface Stations project, but… it will only go so far and the BS artists at RealClimate will dismiss it outright as they have with other legitimate critiques like M&M and the Wegman Report of Mann’s Hockey Stick. They will continue to point to all the incestuous research based on their invalidated methods as “corroborating evidence” and continue to make the ridiculous claim that even if the method is wrong the results are right so everything’s ok.
Without an alternate and superior product to challenge them, this crap will NEVER end
UK MOD has produced a presentaion which I have yet to see claiming that sea ice thickness has reduced by 45 % since 1971 this based on sonar measurements made by nuclear subs yes we do have them and they do under ice operations
Paulus