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Edmonton Journal: Vanishing sea ice creates whole new Arctic

January 14, 2015 — 

Distinguished Professor David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science, was recently interviewed by the Edmonton Journal about the disappearing Arctic sea ice

As he told the newspaper:

“We discovered this rotten ice in the summer of 2009,” said Barber, who made the finding while on an icebreaker in the Beaufort Sea. “It was multi-year sea ice that had deteriorated so much that the meltponds had gone through and connected with the oceans.

“The ice had broken up into tiny pieces about the size of a Volkswagen and these bits and pieces had congealed with new ice that was forming, only a couple centimetres thick. The satellites thought they were looking at multi-year sea ice, but when we were driving a ship through it, it was this heavily rotted stuff that didn’t slow us down at all.”

 

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