Abstract
We demonstrate that atmospheric neutrino data accumulated with the AMANDA and the partially deployed IceCube experiments constrain the allowed parameter space for a hypothesized fourth sterile neutrino beyond the reach of a combined analysis of all other experiments, for Δm241≲1 eV2. Although the IceCube data wins the statistics in the analysis, the advantage of a combined analysis of AMANDA and IceCube data is the partial remedy of yet unknown instrumental systematic uncertainties. We also illustrate the sensitivity of the completed IceCube detector, that is now taking data, to the parameter space of 3+1 model.