Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert

NewsDaily ^ | 2009/10/29 | David Ljunggren

[secretagent]

The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.

Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.

But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.

"We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere," he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada's Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes.

Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought -- and largely failed to find -- a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called "rotten ice" -- 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.

"I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said.

[secretagent]

Of course, GW doesn't mean AGW.

[fireman15]

I am sorry but this article is pure propaganda. If I get the chance tonight I will post links to actual data.

[muawiyah]

Just as they finally found the year-round mass of ice some waves kicked up and it disintegrated.

Sure.

I believe that.

Look, friend, I have a special sale running on some stuff (shows arms covered with watches) that you need.

[Post Toasties]

There were reports that arctic ice was “effectively gone” in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Nothing new here, people; move along.

[chopperman]

I thought that there was volcanic activity happening underneath it.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

I agree.

NASA Visible Earth

[stylin19a]

Scientists have fretted for decades about the pace at which the Arctic ice sheets are shrinking. U.S. data shows the 2009 ice cover was the third-lowest on record, after 2007 and 2008.

scratchin my head....if he's been doing this for 30 years, how'd he miss 2007 & 2008 ?

[_Jim]

This article at first glance would seem to be 'at odds' with the sea ice extent plot shown here:

www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Not sure the image will post:

The ice extgent is CLEARLY on an upswing ...

[fireman15]

David Barber is one of Canada’s leading Alarmists; he is basically Canada’s James Hansen. He has been making dire predictions for years. The Arctic has been brutally cold for the past couple of winters. Sea Ice has been growing at a rate not seen previously in the modern era.

If you will recall a group of environmentalists made an attempt to reach the North Pole this past summer. They believed their own propaganda and thought it would be a cake walk, but couldn’t make it even half way before they were tuned back by severe conditions.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/14/catlin-arctic-survey-gives-up-on-ice-radar-much-less-likely-to-reach-pole/#more-7029

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/icing-the-hype/antarctic_ice_melt_at_lowest_levels_in_satellite_era/

http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/arctic-sea-ice-gone-by-2015-a-challenge-to-david-barber/

[_Jim]

If you will recall a group of environmentalists ...

I followed the story closely over on WUWT; even left a few posts here and there at time when I had something to contribute.

Between WUWT that and CA (Climate Audit) I can't think of two better science sites to complement FR.

[GOPJ]

Yawn

[john in springfield]

Yet another benefit of global warming!

[secretagent]

Thanks. I posted the article to see if there was a counter-narrative.

“Multi-year ice” is the contention point. The article doesn’t give numbers as to its extent.

[secretagent]

The article reports Barber’s impressions that “multi-year ice” is declining.

This is reinforced by another article:

NASA Confirms Dramatic Thinning of Arctic Sea Ice - Multi-Year Ice Area the Size of Alaska Lost

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/nasa-confirms-dramatic-thinning-arctic-sea-ice.php

Any counter-articles, as to "multi-year" ice?

[_Jim]

The article reports Barber’s impressions that “multi-year ice” is declining.

Hmmm ... his 'impressions'; how subjective.

Any counter-articles, as to "multi-year" ice?

I dunno - this is not something I normally track (I'm more into the radiative physics portion of things, emissivity of surfaces, LW IR, atmospheric window physics, etc.)

[secretagent]

"Cryostat-2" may provide the answers. See Goddard's response to Meier:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/19/nsidcs-dr-walt-meier-on-catlin-and-ice-survey-techniques/#more-7212

It sounds like the new European satellite Cryostat-2 will provide the desired ice thickness data, without any geographical bias or concern about snow thickness.

[_Jim]

Have you ever visited this site and read through the discussion:

Sea Ice - October 2009 www.climateaudit.org/?p=7358

A couple of relaevant posts:

Michael Hauber:
October 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm

How do you know that the inventory of old ice has increased? (not that I have a specific opinion either way)

If you take a look at the Quickscat satellite shots, it looks like the persisent low pressure system in the Barents sea has taken a significant area of older ice from that region and pushed it into the Atlantic Ocean east of Greenland where it will continue to move south and sooner or later melt. The ice left at minimum in September does not stay still and automatically become next years old ice.

manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/qscat_ice.pl

************************************************
crosspatch: October 29th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Re: Michael Hauber (#160),

"How do you know that the inventory of old ice has increased?"

Simply because the season this year ended with more ice than last year. That ice will be 2yo ice next season. There will be more 2yo+ ice at the start of 2010 than there was at the start of the 2009 ablation.

[secretagent]

Thanks Jim.

I don’t have the education to follow a lot of the discussion at CA, but will read your link.

[Paul Pierett]

Another poor soul who didn’t buy the last two year’s of Farmer’s Almanac.

I wonder what year he cut off his data research.

[Tainan]

Arctic ice reference bookmark

[Electric Graffiti]

“THE ARCTIC OCEAN IS WARMING UP, ICEBERGS ARE GROWING SCARCER AND IN SOME PLACES THE SEALS ARE FINDING THE WATER TOO HOT. REPORTS ALL POINT TO A RADICAL CHANGE IN CLIMATE CONDITIONS AND HITHERTO UNHEARD-OF TEMPERATURES IN THE ARCTIC ZONE. EXPEDITIONS REPORT THAT SCARCELY ANY ICE HAS BEEN MET WITH AS FAR NORTH AS 81 DEGREES 29 MINUTES. GREAT MASSES OF ICE HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY MORAINES OF EARTH AND STONES, WHILE AT MANY POINTS WELL KNOWN GLACIERS HAVE ENTIRELY DISAPPEARED.”
—US WEATHER BUREAU, 1922

http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lindzen-talk-pdf.pdf

[secretagent]

David Barber gives his impression, gathered from his recent Arctic expedition, that multi-year ice there is at an all time low.

The satellite data seems shaky, though. Still room for doubt at this point.

[secretagent]

What an intriguing excerpt! Thanks.

I’ll read the whole pdf later.

[_Jim]

" —US WEATHER BUREAU, 1922 "

LOL

[_Jim]

David Barber gives his impression, gathered from his recent Arctic expedition, that multi-year ice there is at an all time low.

Yes, because it is floating (not anchored to LAND like the Antarctic) and therefore subject to drift as influenced by the wind ... (that was the gist of the CA posts above)

Barber is disingenuous to avoid revealing the reasons, since, like a good conspiracy theory revealing ALL the facts would allow one to to conclude that something other than AGW was at work for the change in the ice, and, Barber can't have that occur (funding, reputation, prominance in the AGW heiarchy).

[Paul Pierett]

I would like to see the full report. I have found conflicting news releases over the last two years.

I would bet with this second year of a solar minimum his data is 3 to 5 years old.