Arctic BS – Worse Than It Seems

There is a lot more ice in the NSIDC ice-free areas than I realized. The satellite image shows that a lot of the non-existent ice is dark

//ARCTIC.IO/OBSERVATIONS/8/2012-08-21/8-N74.298483-W168.189975

Here is the same image photographed from my screen using my phone, which does some color/gamma correction automatically. There is a lot more ice than the satellite image makes obvious.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
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34 Responses to Arctic BS – Worse Than It Seems

  1. Ray says:

    That hand-shaped iceberg looks pretty big!

  2. Peter Ellis says:

    Now I’ve seen everything. A guy who claims to write image processing software for a living taking a picture off his monitor with a camera phone to try and prove a point…

  3. Steve. I think you should do your own area calculation.

    The imagery exists going back years. Pull up the entire arctic. reshoot every screen with
    your cell phone and count the pixels.

    Ohand it appears that your monitor is out of calibration. The first thing you need to do is fix that.
    when you have a process down be sure to share all your pixel counting so we can correct your mistakes again. when it comes to changing your data, you are to ice what hansen is to temperature.

  4. Peter Ellis says:

    (P.S. Sorry to spoil the fun, but dark pixels mean ice floes that are smaller than the pixels themselves. If the pixel is ~1/5 the intensity of a pixel from the centre of a large floe (what few there are), that means you’re looking at a concentration of ~20%.

    As I’ve been saying for ages, there’s a very large fragmented fringe this year, which is borderline for detection by IMS and below detection for passive microwave sensors. It’ll be gone by the September minimum.

  5. omnologos says:

    It’s the wrong kind of ice!!

  6. donald penman says:

    The ice extent on IMS seems to making a bit of comeback and I doubt if it will be gone by September.The Minimum might not be in September it might be in August because of the cold surface temperature in the arctic. I am not concerned if we reach a new minimum but I can’t see the trend of the last 30 years or so of arctic ice decline going on because I see no reason why it should ,if the ice is declining because the Earth is getting warmer then why is the Antarctic sea ice not declining at the same time.

    • Various explanations have been offered. One is due to atmospheric and ocean current circulation in that region. Another relates to ozone and UV.

    • Ray says:

      According to UAH, the southern hemisphere is warming at less than half the rate of the northern hemisphere.
      Over the last 10 years, the trend at the n.pole is +0.25c/decade while at the s.pole it is The trend at the south pole is -0.12c/decade.
      Over the last 30 years, the figures are +0.57c/decade at the n.pole and zero at the s.pole.

      • Ray says:

        Corrected:
        According to UAH, the southern hemisphere is warming at less than half the rate of the northern hemisphere.
        Over the last 10 years, the trend at the n.pole is +0.25c/decade while at the s.pole it is
        -0.12c/decade.
        Over the last 30 years, the figures are +0.57c/decade at the n.pole and zero at the s.pole.

    • IMS has several challenges to overcome on data sources last I looked.
      As a plus it is a multi sensor approach and as a plus it has the finest grain
      data sources. As a minus it has human analysts in the loop and it appears to be lagged with respect to it’s updates. It will probably be the last record to fall.
      You know you are in denial when you start looking for a data source to confirm your dis belief.

      Still I hold out hope for the GCPII. Goddard Cell Phone ice Index. he has shown us all the way to better data processing by using un calibrated monitors, unspecified data projections and gamma correction via software designed to take better pictures of flesh tones

      • I’m having trouble getting excited about something of no relevance to anything… Two thirds of the ice melts every year, it’s called summer. People are getting worked up by a single digit % change that will last a few weeks at best. I guess if there was some sort of negative impact of AGW that people could be pointing to, the focus would be on that. But instead people are getting emotive over this triviality.

  7. Andy DC says:

    This has become far more absurd than counting angels on the head of a pin. What is ice? What isn’t ice? It is all in the eye of the beholder.

  8. Brian D says:

    You can see the darker ice much better with the Terra 367 band pretty nicely.
    http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2012235.terra.367.4km

    And the Canadians are picking it up on RadarSat for their analysis charts as well.
    http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS45CT/20120822180000_WIS45CT_0006608711.gif

    Looks like 10% of strips and patches in 90-100% concentrations along with 20% of medium floes(100-500m sized). The ice looks to be headed in a W to NW direction towards Russia at about 8 nautical miles a day in the Chukchi Sea as of today.

    Concentrations are higher further south toward the Bering Strait (NW of Point Barrow). 20-70% concentrations with floes running from 100-500m up to between 2-10km as shown in the egg codes.
    http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS56CT/20120820180000_WIS56CT_0006608484.gif

  9. u.k.(us) says:

    @ Steven Mosher
    ———–
    Are the present conditions outside the realm of climate variability as currently understood ?

  10. OK, this is just funny.

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