11/30/09 - Arctic Sea Ice Extent Still Just Barely Above 2007's All-Time Record Low - NSIDC

[hatrack]

I know this shrinks into insignificance when compared with MASSIVE SYSTEMATIC CONSPIRATORIAL FRAUD BY ALL THE WORLD'S SCIENTISTS, but thought it interesting even so.

[lapfog_1]

1. but but but...

we are really in a global cooling trend, right?

And the data was faked. Evil Scientists were trying to mislead the public!

I read it here at DU.


:sarcasm:

[joshcryer]

4. Yeah, one of DUs low points, along with vaccine conspiracies, moon bombing, and such.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. It's just a trick. nt

[joshcryer]

3. The National Snow and Ice Data Center needs to release its raw data.

The data isn't trustworthy because scientists have been proven to collude and tamper with data!

Oh fuck the data is in fact raw and released, shit, um, well.

[lapfog_1]

5. Actually, not to hammer home a point, oh hell, I'm hammering away...

The data contained here isn't the "raw" data (a P0 product), it's already processed a bit, adding calibration correction and corrections for atmospheric conditions, etc. The raw data is sensor data. And after calibration it isn't used again.

The guys accused of all kinds of nefarious activities because they didn't keep the sensor data (the raw data) still have the calibrated data sets.

[joshcryer]

7. NSIDC has what they call Level-1A data (P0 product), and it is unclaibrated, and raw:

http://nsidc.org/data/collections.html

Granted the image posted here has gone through a lot of processing, no doubt, but it should be easy enough to recreate with the proper steps. There's a reason you don't see denialists "recreating" sea ice extent (and why it is largely lacking from their arguments). The data is in fact there and they can easily be shot down if they screw with it to fit their arguments.

[tabatha]

8. Neat. The snowflake icon is now on my toolbar.

[lapfog_1]

9. Actually, NASA has the original P0 products for this,

NSDIC has a copy. I know that because I stored the down linked data. Which is why I am fairly certain that NASA has a copy of the missing (discarded) "raw" data that created the foo-rah-rah. However, I can't say for certain because the data might not be "instrument" data, especially remote sensing data (unlike the NSDIC sea ice extent data, which I am dead certain is all satellite data). I don't know the methodology that was used to create the raw data for historical global temperature record. I'm certain that the methodology was described in their published papers.

[joshcryer]

11. Yeah, it is, I saw a flaw in my statement, the *microwave* data is raw, the sea ice derivation is..

...of course using their own published methodology and algorithms based upon the measurements. That's one thing I love about NASA, almost every single data product going all the way back to the earliest probes is available in a raw state (of course I remember the controversy over the Apollo 11 landing video not being in a raw state because it was overwritten due to tape reuse policies they had back then).

[lapfog_1]

13. Thanks!

My very first job at NASA was recovering the data for the original Mariner, Voyager, and Pioneer planetary missions. JPL had lost some of the tapes, Ames had copies, stored in boxes in the basement of Bldg 200. They were 7 track 800 BPI IBM written (EBCDIC). Some of the blocks on tapes that didn't have a copy at JPL had to be recovered by hand. I hired a group of contractors to sit in a room with hand held magnifying glasses and tubes of iron dust. Copied the bits by hand.

After that, we put all of that data into storage systems at JPL, Ames, and Goddard. Plus, in my storage system at Ames, we made 3 copies, 2 in my bldg (258) and one in bldg 200. Later we made remote copies at Goddard.

Data cost millions (if not billions) to acquire, it was the least we could do.

Oh, as I recall, these were NOT the original telemetry tapes, those were written (I believe) at White Sands and in some weird format on some proprietary system. At least, that's what I was told. Not many people that were there when I started had been around for the planetary missions.

[joshcryer]

15. That's an amazing story. Thanks to guys like you we have the PDS.

A freaking treasure trove of data that one single human being probably could not go over in their lifetime. I remember when I first discovered it, getting the raw image files from Viking 1 and 2, and making images with them (since they came in channels).

I cannot believe you guys used iron dust filings to retrieve the data. That is unbelievable. Please write a book or tell more people about this amazing data retrieval method. :D

About the Apollo 11 data that was lost, a lot of them got flack for it from sites like NASAWatch (not very kind to NASA at times), their basic argument was that the data should've been preserved since it was such an historical event. One of the NASA engineers simply pointed out that since the video data was streamed alongside the data channel (and recorded at the same time with some crazy ass hack; completely beyond the normal operating procedure of the data recorder), it got filed away as a data tape rather than video. Very easy mistake to make and I was so frustrated that they were being questioned so hard about it. Sorry I don't know the lingo they used for the recorders and whatnot, but it was during that amazing conference awhile back where all of the old timers responsible for recording it (and making the video cameras for the Apollo mission) did that event. If you still keep in touch with NASA stuff I'm sure you saw or heard about what I'm talking about!

But yeah, amazing story, thanks for sharing it.

[lapfog_1]

17. Actually, in the 1960s and early 70s

there were companies (3M???) that made "kits" with iron filing pens, just for this purpose.

A 7 track 800 BPI tape only has about 100 spots per linear inch for "bit transitions" (not every bit would be recorded, only when a bit was different than the previous bit would you see a "magnet" on the track).

What you would do is sprinkle the dust over the block, write down the locations of each magnet, shake the tape and do it again, possibly 3 or 4 times, and then hand it to someone else to do it again.

Sort of like "hanging chads" in Florida 2000.

Yeah, I remember the deal about the video from Apollo 11, but really nothing more than what's in the popular press (now the internets). I didn't deal with Johnson or Kennedy all that much, and the JPL thing was only because they stored copies at Ames (both centers being in CA). Otherwise, I dealt with the Aeronautics side of NASA (Ames, Langley, Lewis - now Glenn) and the EOSDIS data from Goddard. NASA really is two agencies... the "space" agency from the 1950s and 60s (Goddard, Kennedy, Johnson, Marshall, JPL, and Dryden) and the old NACA facilities that were more aeronautics (Ames, Langley, Lewis). Wind tunnels. Flight research. Of course, there is always a bit of crossover. The shuttle tiles were developed at Ames, and the shuttle flight simulator is at Ames, as well as other astronaut training facilities.

Kalpana Chawla was a colleague of mine and had her office just down the hall from me. I remember her bounding into my office with great enthusiasm and getting in my face if my data retrieval system wasn't allowing her latest Supercomputer simulation to run fast enough for her. A lot of energy in a small person. Had to explain to her that physically reading tape takes time. That the new system was many times faster than the old IBM system. And easier to deal with for her ("just open the file, KC") When I saw the first reports of the Columbia disaster... well, it still chokes me up. I joined NASA just after the return to flight following Challenger, and left just before Columbia.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Damn, how cool is that?

:yourock:

[tabatha]

6. Oh, terrible, that looks like a hockey stick.

Maybe an ice hockey stick.

[lapfog_1]

10. Since this is a "seasonal" graph

with one line representing just one season of sea ice creation, we better HOPE it continues to look like a "hockey stick".

The interesting part of this picture is that the "average line" is SO MUCH HIGHER (on the graph) than the 2007 line or the current season's line, where 2007 represented the smallest sea ice extent on record. 2009, while not perhaps a record setter, is fairly close to the 2007 data.

Of more interest is the raw volume of sea ice (extent X thickness), and, if reports are true, we may be entering a time where there is LESS sea ice now than anytime in the past (say for the last 200+ years that man has recorded attempts to find the "Northwest passage"). The extent might be the same or even a bit larger than the minimum, but the thickness is much, much less.

What was considered "permanent sea ice" might be melting right under our noses, leaving only a thin crust at the surface.

[joshcryer]

12. There was a post here recently where they thought 10 meter ice turned out to be 2 meters...

...thick. Satellites are very limited with how well they can measure thickness, and I expect the Arctic to be iceless in my lifetime.

[lapfog_1]

14. NASA has a "new" satellite to measure that very thing...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-107

[Dead_Parrot]

18. That's a rather depressing image

Gone from 5 to near 0 round Franz Joseph. :(

[lapfog_1]

19. Which is why we shouldn't look to sea ice extent

as the only factor in determining the health of our polar regions.

This clearly shows that not only in the sea ice getting smaller, but there it is much thinner than it used to be.

And it's happening much more rapidly than the earlier models forecast.

Within my lifetime (I got maybe 20 years left, if lucky) there will be a late summer where there is NO ice sheet in the Arctic. And maybe only icebergs and some coastal ice. Completely open.

If you remember the old "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (the movie), you'll remember that the submarine surfaces at the North Pole and the crew is amazed that there isn't any sea ice (because the Van Allen radiation belt "caught fire"!). It's a global catastrophe. Well, it won't be a "burning radiation belt", but we will be able to surface at the North Pole without touching any ice at all... and very soon.

Of course, Global Climate Change is a hoax... because some idiot at some university threw away some old tapes that had raw data on them... and said some mean things about climate deniers in emails!

See the hoax! (need I add... :sarcasm:)

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Sooner than you might think

from http://www.lewispugh.com/swims.html

In 2007 I became the first person to complete a long distance swim at the Geographic North Pole. The swim, in water ranging in temperature between minus 1.7ºC and 0ºC (29F and 32F) took 18 minutes and 50 seconds to complete. It was by far the hardest swim I have undertaken!

I undertook the swim in a large lead (a crack in the ice) to highlight the devastating effects of climate change in the Arctic. Over the past few years there has been a dramatic reduction in the extent and thickness of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.

And yeah, we'll have zero ice at the pole in no time at all. My money's on <5 years, but I'm good at pessimism.

Hey ho.

[joshcryer]

21. OMG @ that video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sS8OcEwXNs

[lapfog_1]

22. Yeah, I knew that we have had periods of open water

near the north pole...

But I had no idea that someone would swim it.

Not to mention, no drysuit, no wetsuit. Just a speedo.

Crap. We're boned.

[joshcryer]

23. Icebreaker made that, but yeah. The video is definitely inspirational.

[Viking12]

24. More like a really steep hill...

[Nihil]

25. Are you sure that 2833 × 2079 pixels is big enough?

:P

[Viking12]

26. LOL. It does emphasize the point, doesn't it?