Permanent Arctic Ice Vanishing - Satellite Images Misled Shocked Scientists

[hatrack]

Crosspost from LBN

Source: Toronto Star

EDIT

Experts around the world believed the ice was recovering because satellite images showed it expanding. But David Barber says the thick, multi-year frozen sheets crucial to the northern ecosystem have been replaced by thin "rotten" ice that can't support weight of the bears. "It caught us all by surprise because we were expecting there to be multi-year sea ice. The whole world thought it was multi-year sea ice," said Barber, who just returned from an expedition to the Beaufort Sea.

"Unfortunately, what we found was that the multi-year (ice) has all but disappeared. What's left is this remnant, rotten ice."

Permanent ice, which is normally up to 10 metres thick, was easily pierced by the research ship, said Barber, who holds the Canada research chair in Arctic science at the University of Manitoba. The team finally reached what it thought was stable ice, only to watch a crack appear just as researchers were preparing to descend onto the floe.

"As I watched, over the course of five minutes, the entire multi-year ice floe broke up into pieces," Barber said. "This floe was 16 km across. Something that's twice the size of Winnipeg, it just broke up right in front of our eyes."

EDIT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Faygo Kid]

1. Thank you. Right wing nuts will never believe it.

I tire of them.

[bhikkhu]

3. Or they'll tell you just what they think about polar bears

as I can unfortunately say from experience.

[Quantess]

4. What do they say about polar bears?

That they taste good?

[bhikkhu]

9. "varmints" to the hunters in town

Which is to say, to the majority of the people I deal with on a daily basis.

Wolves, bears, raccoons, badgers, hawks, foxes. squirrels, prairie dogs, starlings, etc - all varmints that should be just shot. It still gets me, as I grew up thinking that all that was over 50 years ago, but I still hear resentment from time to time that there are laws against just killing all the "worthless" animals.

[Quantess]

22. Ah yes. Animals are the enemy.

Maybe the real motivation is they like to shoot things? What else could explain such a boneheaded perspective?

[pscot]

24. Read Where the Wild Things Were

by William Stolzenberg. It's relatively brief and very readable. Speaks directly to your post, and why your neighbors have got it wrong.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Oops.

That happened faster than I was expe-

Oh, never mind.

[joshcryer]

5. Heh. We've actually known about volume decreases, but this is a nice direct observation.

Shame, this.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. I'd figured...

...that whilst we knew the multi-year was in decline, we at least had a good handle on where it was (and therefore how long it might last). This suggests we've got it rather badly wrong, and depending on weather I'd not be surprised to see an ice free pole in the next 3 or 4 years.

I believe the phrase is "Oh, Fuck".

[joshcryer]

14. There was a post here a week or so back about funding. This illustrates the point well.

Satellites are not perfect. Assumptions of 10 meter thick ice vs 2 meter thick ice are astounding, sickening, breathtaking. I will post excerpts from the journal when it is published. Amazingly fucked up.

What happens if 2010 is a really bad (1998 style) El Nino? Whole Arctic ocean becomes one dark and empty void, that's what. Freaking crazy. I'm just not going to think about that.

[XemaSab]

8. That's my line

[Dead_Parrot]

10. You were too slow...

...or maybe I was just faster than you expected.

[joshcryer]

15. Tsk tsk, being fast ain't always a good thing.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. ...

[hatrack]

23. Are you saying that the redoubtable XemaSab was . .

"Slower Than Expected"?!?!?!

[NickB79]

6. One good warm year, and the whole polar cap will vanish in a summer

There's nothing left to hold it together anymore.

[joshcryer]

12. 2010 + El Nino + possible end of solar minimum = oh fuck.

We should only hope that the solar minimum doesn't end next year.

[Odin2005]

19. *SHUDDER*

[pscot]

25. The solar minimum is really dragging out

Currently 6 days without a sunspot. Over 2 years of quiet sun. On the other hand, the Maunder Minimum lasted almost two generations, so who knows.

[Birthmark]

11. But...but...

...emails..."trick"..."hide the decline"..."refusal to turn over raw data"

For some (entirely non-scientific) reason, I expected this. I predicted (based on nothing but gut) that the Arctic Ice Cap would be gone in summer by 2017. I never dreamed that I was being optimistic.

Has anyone else noticed that when the climatologists get this stuff wrong, it always seems to be by being overly cautious in their predictions? They're terrible alarmists!

[joshcryer]

13. Yeah, few of them want to make their gut predictions and always err on the conservative side.

It's unfortunate, really, but if they get it wrong by overstating a problem, they lose credibility more than if they get it wrong by understating.

[Ghost Dog]

17. Nah. This guy Barber's obviously a global warming supporter,

and therefore biased, so enlightened bloggers can discount anything he says. Lord Monckton told me so on Alex Jones, so it must be so.

[Odin2005]

18. Is it just me or has "faster than we expected" become the dominant theme

[XemaSab]

20. Welcome to 2006

[Odin2005]

21. LOL!