What would NSIDC and our media make of a photo like this if released by the NAVY today? Would we see headlines like “NORTH POLE NOW OPEN WATER”? Or maybe “Global warming melts North Pole”? Perhaps we would. sensationalism is all the rage these days. If it melts it makes headlines.
Some additional captures from the newsreel below show that the ice was pretty thin then, thin enough to assign deckhands to chip it off after surfacing.The newsreel is interesting, here is the transcript.
1958 Newsreel: USS Skate, Nuclear Sub, Is First to Surface at North Pole
ED HERLIHY, reporting:
USS Skate heads north on another epic cruise into the strange underseas realm first opened up by our nuclear submarines. Last year, the Skate and her sister-sub Nautilus both cruised under the Arctic ice to the Pole. Then, conditions were most favorable. The Skate’s job is to see if it can be done when the Arctic winter is at its worst, with high winds pushing the floes into motion and the ice as thick as twenty-five feet.
Ten times she is able to surface. Once, at the North Pole, where crewmen performed a mission of sentiment, scattering the ashes of polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. In 1931, he was the first to attempt a submarine cruise to the Pole. Now, the Skate’s twelve-day three thousand mile voyage under the ice, shown in Defense Department films, demonstrates that missile-carrying nuclear subs could lurk under the Polar Ice Cap, safe from attack, to emerge at will, and fire off H-bomb missiles to any target on Earth.
A powerful, retaliatory weapon for America’s defense.
For example, one crew member aboard the USS Skate which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959 and numerous other locations during Arctic cruises in 1958 and 1959 said:
“the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick. The ice moves from Alaska to Iceland and the wind and tides causes open water as the ice breaks up. The Ice at the polar ice cap is an average of 6-8 feet thick, but with the wind and tides the ice will crack and open into large polynyas (areas of open water), these areas will refreeze over with thin ice. We had sonar equipment that would find these open or thin areas to come up through, thus limiting any damage to the submarine. The ice would also close in and cover these areas crushing together making large ice ridges both above and below the water. We came up through a very large opening in 1958 that was 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. The wind came up and closed the opening within 2 hours. On both trips we were able to find open water. We were not able to surface through ice thicker than 3 feet.”
– Hester, James E., Personal email communication, December 2000
Here are some screencaps from the newsreel:
It was that way again in 1962:
And of course then there’s this famous photo:
But contrast that to 1999, just 12 years later, lots of ice:
But in 1993, it’s back to thin ice again:
The point illustrated here: the North Pole is not static, ice varies significantly. The Arctic is not static either. Variance is the norm.
There’s quite an interesting read at John Daly’s website, including a description of “the Gore Box”. Everybody should have one of those.
h/t to WUWT commenters Stephen Skinner, Crosspatch, and Glenn.
See the Skate image archive at NAVSOURCE
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storky (18:13:53) :
sRobert Austin (17:05:56)
“So you feel confident in extrapolating the 30 year trend to an ice free Arctic.”
sNo, not from 30 years of satellite data alone. But when it is reinforced by 11,000 years of core ice sample data from glaciers all over the planet, I have greater confidence.
So does your “greater confidence” extend so far that you consider the science “settled”? I imagine one can rationally favour the AGW hypothesis without raving about tipping points and polar bears dieing. The fact is that we are not going to appreciably reduce or CO2 production in the near future so it will be interesting to follow climate trends over the next decade.
I have added the photo of the USS Skate at the North Pole to the wikipedia articles here. Hope everybody can help make sure they stay up there in the face of historical revisionism from the alarmists, and complain to wiki admins if certain individuals persist in removing them….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage#Effects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic#Climate_change
Stephen Daivs (00:43:46) : Polynyas are a phenomenon known for quite a long period of time, they are areas of open water that form (sometimes briefly) (sometimes in the same spot) they occur in both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.
Oh, golly, you mean when those ice shelves in Antarctica break and get a big water gap in them it isn’t due to global warming, it’s strictly natural? Why thank you for enlightening me and making that clear.
Adam Soereg (01:59:58) : even mention the fast recovery of Arctic sea ice extent to near-normal levels. Let I guess, next year they will come out with an unprecedented low level of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year ice.
And don’t forget that with that 2nd and 3rd year ice in the way, they can legitimately state “Less new ice formed at the arctic this year than last!!!”
Jason Calley (17:29:38) : “Hey Jorge, interesting point about the lack of solar reflection, and yes, we would certainly expect a brighter spot on the ice under normal circumstances. I kept looking at the photo and never noticed that it was lacking until you pointed it out. On the other hand, we really do not have enough information about the photo and how it was made. For instance, the light coming off of the ice will be strongly dominated by the horizontally polarized component of the sunlight. Most good photographers will carry a polarizing filter with their gear so that they can cut out that reflection and glare. You make a good point, but we may just have a photo taken with a polarized filter on the lens!”
Yes, I’d agree. A polarized filter would account for almost zero visible specular reflection, if it’s there. I did consider a filter, but the surface of the ice here seemed quite rough, consistent with much lower than normal albedo. Under either scenario, the rest of my post is unaffected; Arctic ice just isn’t the ideal reflector it’s assumed to be. Good comment, Jason.
North Pole and Submarines.
There seems quite a lot of interest in the sources of the images in the post. Here are the sources of most of the pictures in the post and a few more.
Skate (SSN-578), surfaced at the North Pole, 17 March 1959. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857806.jpg
Sailors from the Seadragon (SSN-584), background, clowning around on the ice during the craft’s August 1960 Arctic operation. The batter is ready to receive the first baseball ever pitched at the North Pole. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0858412.jpg
Skate (SSN-578), at the North Pole, 1962. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857801.jpg
Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, and her sister Skate (SSN-578) during a rendezvous at the North Pole in August 1962. Note the men on the ice beyond the submarines. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0858411.jpg
Skate (SSN-578), and Seadragon (SSN-584) surfaced at the North Pole, 1962. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857805.jpg
Seadragon (SSN-584), in the background, and Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the North Pole, 1962. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857805.jpg
Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, and her sister Skate (SSN-578) during a rendezvous at the North Pole in August 1962. Note the men on the ice beyond the submarines http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0858411.jpg
The Queenfish (SSN-651) at the North Pole on 6 Aug. 1970. http://navsource.org/archives/08/658/0865127.jpg
Santa Claus greets crewmen of the Queenfish (SSN-651) at the North Pole (Chief Quartermaster Jack Pataterson as Santa), summer 1970. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0865104.jpg
Makeshift number. On 5 Aug. the Queenfish (SSN-651) became the 10th American submarine to reach the geographic North Pole. It then surfaced through a hole in the ice about 500 yards away. http://navsource.org/archives/08/658/0865118.jpg
An elevated view of the attack submarines Ray (SSN-653), Hawkbill (SSN-666), and & Archerfish (SSN-678) surfaced at the geographic North Pole, 6 May 1986 during ICEX 86. This is the first time three nuclear-powered submarines have simultaneously surfaced at the pole. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0866623.jpg
The sail of the nuclear-powered attack submarine Billfish (SSN-676) protudes from the ice while the ship is surfaced at the North Pole. The sail-mounted diving planes are in the vertical position for breaking through the ice on 30 Mar 1987. http://navsource.org/archives/08/500/0867605.jpg
U.S. and British sailors explore the Arctic ice cap while conducting the first U.S./British coordinated surfacing at the North Pole. The ships are, left to right: the nuclear-powered attack submarine Sea Devil (SSN-664), the fleet submarine HMS Superb (S-109) , and the nuclear-powered attack submarine Billfish (SSN-676), 18 May 1987. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0866408.jpg
U.S. and British sailors explore the Arctic ice cap while conducting the first U.S./British coordinated surfacing at the North Pole. The ships are, left to right: the nuclear-powered attack submarine Sea Devil (SSN-664), the fleet submarine HMS Superb (S-109) , and the nuclear-powered attack submarine Billfish (SSN-676), 18 May 1987. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0866403.jpg
Hawkbill (SSN-666), at the North Pole, 1999.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0866623.jpg
North Polar Region (Apr. 19, 2004) – The Royal Navy Trafalgar class attack submarine HMS Tireless sits on the surface of the North Pole. Tireless surfaced with the U.S. Navy Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Hampton (SSN 767) for ICEX 04, a joint operational exercise beneath the polar ice cap. http://www.news.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=13821
North Polar Region (Apr. 19, 2004) – The crew of the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Hampton (SSN 767) posted a sign reading “North Pole” made by the crew after surfacing in the polar ice cap region http://www.news.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=13822
While USS Honolulu (SSN-718) is the 24th Los Angeles-class submarine to surface at the North Pole, she is the first of the first-flight 688 to perform operations Arctic. http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_23/north.htm
Submarine North Pole timeline.
http://www.google.co.nz/archivesearch?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ADBR_enNZ272NZ275&q=submarine+%22north+pole%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&scoring=t&ei=OyD2SdStDcaHkQXq4amiCg&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&resnum=11&ct=title
.
To be completely cynical, isn’t it convenient that as one global scar diminishes (AGW), another has been discovered (Swine flu).
.
Good job there was a film cameraman already there when the Skate first surfaced, else we’d never have witnessed such a historic moment.
Important Message:
The german Alfred-Wegner-Institut finished an expedition today:
The Ice in the arctic is two times thicker than expected: 4m instead of 2m
http://www.radiobremen.de/wissen/nachrichten/wissenawipolararktis100.html
Look at a properly laid out, accurately built armillary sphere: It will show th esun’s position above the horizon for every day of the year – at the latitude the pole of the armillary is set for.
The sun’s height above the horizon – which is proportional to the length of each day – only very slowly moves from its minimum height (on Dec 22) to exactly even (12 hours from sunup to sundown) on March 22 to maximum height on June 22, and back to a twelve hour day on Sept 22.
(Yeah – I know – sometimes its the 21st, not the 22nd – but notice that the photo’s taken of the submarines at the north pole were dated March 17. Very close to the 12 hour day (midpoint or equinox) of March 21-22.)
So, when the photo was taken, the pole had 12 hours of daylight, and an hour or so before (and after) of twilight when the light was only slightly lower quality. Only much later in the year does the pole (the area above the Arctic Circle/below the Antarctic Circle) get the proverbial 24 hours of sunlight. In winter, same rule applies: 24 hours of darkness doesn’t suddenly change to 24 hours of sunlight in one day.
There is an article in the guardian today,I don’t know if it has been posted
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/28/climate-change-poles
Headline
Climate change hitting entire Arctic ecosystem, says report
They give links in the article,but it looks like the report
they are talking about is a rehash of old info.I am a dumbo at science,and want to point this out in this blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/apr/27/climate-change-carbon-emissions
but I may be wrong.What do I do?
Flanagan, this is a wake-up call, don’t go away, all is forgiven, come back.
Yddar,
thank you very much for this news. If this turns out to be true, the whole arctic ice melting thing is proven to be a total scam.
From Radio Bremen interview:
“The research aircraft Polar 5 ended today in Canada a recent Arctic expedition. During the flight, researchers have measured the current ice thickness at the North Pole, and in areas that have never before been overflown. Result: The sea-ice in the surveyed areas is apparently thicker than scientists had suspected.
Normally, after two years newly formed ice is over two meters thick. “Here ice thickness was up to four meters,” said a spokesman of Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. For scientists, this result is contradicting the warming of the seawater.
Besides the ice thickness, also the composition of the air was investigated. With the help of a laser, the researchers reviewed how polluted the atmosphere by emissions from industrialized countries. In the next few weeks the results are evaluated. On the expedition were some 20 scientists from the U.S., Canada, Italy and Germany.”
The translation is mine so I cannot guarantee the accuracy.
Here is more about the expedition:
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/pam_arcmip/?cHash=17cb2bdafa
Here is a quote from the Alfred Wegener Institute web site about their Arctic measurement campaign (which ended today):
“The extent of Arctic sea ice has declined stronger than predicted by climate models. However, little is known about changes of its thickness. Sea ice is in constant movement and it can become thicker by deformation than by freezing. Therefore, not only the areal extent of the ice is an important variable in the Arctic climate system, but also its thickness. “We hope to gain an appraisal of the whole Arctic ice volume for the first time ever in order to be able to compare the changes in the different regions”, says Dr. Andreas Herber, physicist and in charge of the research aircrafts of the Alfred Wegener Institute. The operation of the research aircraft Polar 5 will allow for the first time to carry out large scale ice thickness measurements in Arctic key areas which could hitherto not be reached by the German research vessel Polarstern.”
I made a similar sort of comment a few days ago, I can remember being surprised at submarines surfacing at the North pole.
Arctic Ice volume has, I think, varied over long periods, I believe I read somewhere, but haven’t recently been able to verify, that Chinese mariners over a thousand years ago reported that there were big gaps in the ice and the North East Passage to, what is now, Russia was open for tens of years.
There must also be a cycle of single and multi year ice, my own interpretation is that it’s very dependent on the AMO, with strong Westerlies in a Positive AMO period, more warm water, relatively speaking, is pushed North of Europe and melts the Ice from below.
We had, until this last 2008-9 winter, nailed on westerlies for 4-6 week periods for each of the last 7 years, perhaps someone could try to calculate what the heat transfer from South West to North East is, I think it’s probably enough to raise the temperature of the sea below the ice by a few degrees, possibly enough to accentuate the melting and thinning.
This last winter, on the other hand has seen a much more neutral to negative AMO, so if my theory has any merits, there will be less melting, therefore more ice this year.
p.s. guess what, by next year it will be multi year ice as well !!
Sorry, got my acronyms the wrong way round anywhere in the previous post where I say AMO I meant NAO
Al Gore still repeating his lies and failed mantras
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/28/black-carbon-emissions
Hu McCulloch (06:50:07) : According to Hester’s account, the sub had to break through 2 feet of ice to do a winter surfacing. I see the ice in other photos, but not in this one.
REPLY: There is ice floating in the water, look carefully. – Anthony
Also, notice the slab of ice that one of the mariners is standing on. At the front of the bow, the first guy is about 1.5 feet off the deck. That is ice he is standing on. Also notice the ice crusts on the bow itself. This boat has just come through a couple of feet of ice somewhere. It is also a bit easier to see the floating ice in this archive copy:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857806.jpg
where if you look carefully you can also see some of the subsurface ice near the foreground below the surface ice blobs. What looks a bit like surface wind / ripple haze in the smaller picture is more easily seen to be subsurface portions of the ice chunk that is supporting the foreground blobs in the slightly larger picture. Finally, there is a chunk of ice visible in the background just behind the center of the bow as a line to the edge of the picture. It’s hard to tell if that’s a floater or the edge of a shelf, since the background starts to fuzz up due to depth of field issues behind it. My guess based on the relative fuzziness is that it’s about the same distance away as the stern of the boat and is the broken edge of a thin ice field with depth matching the chunk the sailor is standing upon.
So my photo interpretation of his is that the boat surfaced through about 1.5 to 2 feet of ice sheet while underway (making forward progress) at very slow speed (such that a chunk could get stuck on the bows) and left an open trail behind it. Upon stopping, the captain had a bit of extra ‘stern screws’ going and the boat drifted backwards just a little from this. The photographer was put over the side in a small raft into the open water thus made and set his camera (as detailed in prior photo-oriented interpretation postings here) while the rest of the crew adopted the positions shown in the photo. I could speculate that the party appears to be appropriate to Captain with the conning tower, deck officer and raft launch party on deck, photographer / science or mid grade officer in the raft; but that’s stretching it a bit from the actual data in the photo. They all do have period appropriate clothing that is also arctic appropriate and indicative of very cold weather. 2 or possibly 3 of the mariners have left hand positions indicative of holding coffee cups (possibly cocoa … can’t tell that from the photo 😎 but I don’t think it was as common as coffee then.
Oh, and if you look at the bow fin lower edge and the side of the boat, you see evidence of water runoff freezing into surface ice. Wherever they surfaced, the air temperature is below freezing, most likely by a significant amount or the boat skin heat would have prevented rapid freezing
And one human perspective note. If the open water had been behind the boat, due to no reverse screws, the raft would have been to the rear and the photo would have had a different perspective, but still had the open water because that is where you put the raft. That there is open water in the picture just tells you what people do with rafts and prudence about not walking on thin recently fractured ice; it does not tell you that ice is missing elsewhere including on the other side of the boat nor at the other end of the boat where it disappears into a haze of soft edge focus, depth of field limits, and contrast falloff.
Isn’t photo interpretation fun?
BTW, when folks challenge these kinds of photos it really would be a good idea to practice a bit more precise observation skills before hitting “submit”. It is really just a matter of looking, small area by small area, at the photo and asking yourself “What is everything I can learn from the objects and lighting in this area?”. (We’ll leave issues of provenance and photo technology for another day…) Then sort it into Known, Probable, and Speculative. You will find much more in any photo than you might expect…
Luke (08:40:54) : There have been doubts expressed about the validity of the submarine photo.
There have been doubts expressed about man reaching the moon too. What matters is their veracity…
http://web.archive.org/web/20031203174202/ […]
Has nothing at all about the Skate in it. It’s about a different topic, Port Arthur sea level.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060218082437/ […]
Makes the assertion that since the Captains retelling of his surfacing has wind and cold and blowing snow (not in the picture) that the picture must be totally fraudulent. Folks, this is called weather. It changes.
Now I can’t say if the photo was taken on exactly the 17th or within an hour of surfacing. My GUESS would be that it was probably after a day or so of the actual surfacing. Were I captaining the boat, I’d come up, do a weather check at the conning tower AND have a crew hull inspection for damages AND do a brief 5 foot under to check for hard to see leaks AND do a radio check / wait for orders AND probably have a nice cup of coffee and maybe even a long congratulatory talk to the crew. Then, and only then, would I think about putting out a “shore party”. Plenty of time for a storm to fade.
Which brings me to part two: Human Factors.
Do you really think the Captain would put crew overboard in a dingy or raft in a blowing storm? Or do you think that just maybe he would wait a day or so for the storm to blow on by? Since there is no day / night cycle of sun rise / set at this point, it would take a ships chronometer to really say when one day ended and the next began and sub crews work around the clock. The boat never sleeps.
So I’m the photographer. We surface and work for 12 to 14 hours making ready. At some point, I take a picture of us at the pole during our event of surfacing at the pole initiated on the 17th. Am I really all that concerned about placarding that picture as “Skate, surfaced on the 17th, then dunked for a hull check, then resurfaced 4 hours later, then did a maintenance check, finally got to go in the raft and took this picture that might have been the 18th or 19th but I don’t really know ’cause I’m just a grunt and don’t have chronometer access and they work us 24 hrs a day anyway at times like this” or would I instead say “We surfaced on the 17th and here is a picture of us at the pole then (meaning the event)”.
The complaint really comes down to ought the caption be: “Skate, had surfaced on the 17th” or “Skate, surfacing and photo on exactly the 17th”.
JHPC folks, if AGW had to meet that standard of proof we’d all be issued arctic coats by NASA by now…
The captain wrote his memoirs and talked up the cold on surfacing a bit. A while (ill defined, but a day maybe two max given low snow level on the deck) later the storm has a break and they do a quick photo op (which explains the ice on the bow fin and skin, it had TIME to get cold on the skin) and the photo is labeled with the EVENT not the CHRONOMETER. Big eff… deal.
REPLY: Perhaps the NAVY can help, even if we throw out that photo, there are others listed that support the same idea. – Anthony
There is no reason what so ever to toss out that photo. It is completely consistent with the location, time, event, historical context, historical record, etc. ad. nauseum. It has a trivial discrepancy with a memoir of an initial surface condition as the boat broke the surface that is not at all a persistent state (i.e. the weather changes) and at most might have a trivial 1 to 2 day time stamp issue. Big Whoop.
Given what GIStemp does with rewriting historical temperatures 100 years in the past and 1500 km away from a station, I would count this picture as a solid gold standard of accuracy in comparison. So toss GIStemp, keep the photo.
FWIW:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Skate_(SSN-578)_surfaced_in_Arctic_-_1959.jpg
Shows a full color full sun picture of the Skate from the same period (the wiki story says the surfaced 10 times on their polar run). Notice that it is full color and high resolution.
This tells me that they had nice color film that needed lots of light but could not use it for their polar picture (i.e. it was dark and they needed more than ASA 100 to get any picture at all). Assuming it’s the same camera (reasonable assumption on a small boat, consistent with pictures) we know the lens when stopped down gives very good depth of field and reasonable edge sharpness (confirming prior estimates of camera settings for polar picture as opposed to it just being a bad camera). There is an interesting fuzzy cloud at the stern again. I suspect now that there is a purging of the air systems going on and that is vapor condensation in both pictures. In this picture you can see the open water behind the boat where it surfaced before butting up to the ice to let off a ‘shore party’. This picture IMHO, confirms that the polar picture was taken before significant sun was above the horizon (i.e. indirect light from high cloud) and puts the date at 17, 18, 19th interval. After that, you had sun above the horizon and would have had significantly more light with a harsher side lighting effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Skate_at_North_Pole_-_0857806.jpg
is the same picture as in the WUWT article, but includes a bit of legal reference to the provider and cites the taker of the photo as a navy employee for purposes of public domain copyright (i.e. it’s isn’t photoshopped or someone is on the hook for a copyright violation…)
and the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Skate_(SSN-578)
Sites multiple subs making multiple trips to the arctic and pole with multiple surfacings including:
In early March 1959 , she again headed for the Arctic to pioneer operations during the period of extreme cold and maximum ice thickness. The submarine steamed 3,900 miles (6,300 km) under pack ice while surfacing through it ten times. On 17 March, she surfaced at the North Pole to commit the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic waste. When the submarine returned to port, she was awarded a bronze star in lieu of a second Navy Unit Commendation for demonstrating “… for the first time the ability of submarines to operate in and under the Arctic ice in the dead of winter….” In the fall of 1959 and in 1960, Skate participated in exercises designed to strengthen American antisubmarine defenses.
So you can argue with the Navy about wether or not they awarded a Bronze Star and Unit Commendation based on the truth, or not. Me, I’m of the opinion that Bronze Stars and Unit Commendations are a bit hard to come by and not handed out willy nilly. Might even take some photo documentation…
Bob (12:14:44) : BTW, the sun in the pictures in the above articles looks to be about 30 degrees above the horizon. The sun a maximum of 23 degrees above the horizon at the geographic pole on or about June 20. Perhaps the pictures were taken at lower latitudes in the Arctic and the authors of the articles just forgot to mention that.
Unless you know the focal length of the lens used, it’s distortion figure, and the distance of the camera from the objects, you can not accurately determine angle of the sun above the horizon. Certainly not to single digit degrees. Sorry.
(Think of a fisheye lens as an extreme case. The sun will always be in the picture if you point the camera straight up… 180 degrees of photo angle gets compressed into about 45 to 20 degrees of viewing angle for a print, less for the images here… mild wide angle was normal in the cameras of that era – about 45 mm being common, 35mm for some, with greater distortion near the edges.)
jorgekafkazar (16:06:25) : Regarding the Hawkbill photo: There should be a reflected image of the sun on the ice. Instead, there’s a dim pattern of specks of light scattered over an area about the size of a beach towel.
I’ve had that in snow pictures before. The reflectance depends greatly on the texture of the snow / ice crystals. Internal reflections in ice grains can soak up a lot of sun. IIRC, snow with a bit of grain in it gives this kind of picture. Also notice that the surface is heavily stippled. Much of the incident sun will be reflected in directions away from the camera. I was more taken by the fact that the sun is directly in the picture, yet no rainbow artifacts from the lens coating and no phantom aperture shape is in the frame. Nice Lens! (Or uncoated optics stopped way down…)
There is a fair amount of washout around the sun from flare. You can’t just judge the size of the sun from the size of its image due to this overexposure flare and washout.
Finally, notice that the snow is about 10% to 15% grey scale approaching 18% near the edges in the photo while the tower is flat black. This image is exposed for the SNOW not the boat nor the people. This means WAY stopped down which means further attenuation of any solar reflectance off the stippled surface. IFF the photo had been exposed for the boat and people I would have expected an overexposed sun reflectance patch.
I see nothing inconsistent in this photo, though the falloff in the darkness of the sky in the corners and generally deep blue make me wonder if a polarizing filter was used (as does the light rays from the sun image…). That is what I would do to cut specular reflection off the snow / ice surface, intensify the sky, get a neat solar image with a bit of rays, and generally flatten the glare out of the whole thing.
Hey folks, a StephenHudson fellow from Norway is vandalizing my edits on Wikipedia on the arctic articles adding the USS Skate. Can we get some support there? He is apparently an alarmist according to his user page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:StephenHudson
@Robert Austin (17:05:56)
“So does your “greater confidence” extend so far that you consider the science ‘settled’?”
Scientific theory is never “settled,” but until better theories resolve minor inconsistencies (like the tropospheric masking effects provided by volcanic eruptions and the mitigating effects on Atlantic storm formation by airborne Saharan sand), the current ones serve adequately. Solar forcing, however, has been demonstrated to be a minor contributor to Global Warming. Those who claim the last 8-10 years show a cooling trend never respond to requests for studies in support of that assertion, so what am I to imply other than they don’t exist?
“I imagine one can rationally favour the AGW hypothesis without raving about tipping points and polar bears dying.”
I am not an alarmist, but I take extreme exception to current attempts by unqualified individuals to discredit studies supporting AGW. Claiming elitism is a spurious rebuttal for one’s lack of training in statistical analysis. If one wants to challenge science, one should be adequately trained in the tools of the trade.
“The fact is that we are not going to appreciably reduce or CO2 production in the near future so it will be interesting to follow climate trends over the next decade.”
Unfortunately true and ultimately discouraging. The prospect of accurately forecasting AGW effects, with the consequences like crop failure, famine, and competition for water rights and arable land, isn’t a comforting thought. It’s perhaps the only time we hope we’re wrong.
.
>>During the flight, researchers have measured the current ice
>>thickness at the North Pole, and in areas that have never before
>>been overflown. Result: The sea-ice in the surveyed areas is
>>apparently thicker than scientists had suspected.
So, no need for the Catlin expedition, then !!