Quote of the week #8 – Monbiot: "looks like I've boobed"

Lucy Skywalker (09:07:56) :…anyway I’ve used that pic already for my Arctic bumper sticker design… Anthony I’ll be in touch soon, I’ve done 30 designs. That pic has gotta be correct or else!
I did an ersatz forensic review of the photo on the prior NP Nuke boat thread and find it credible. Arctic sunrise isn’t like tropical sunrise. 3 days before sunrise the sun would be hanging around just under the horizon with plenty of scattered twilight. I estimated the picture was taken with Tri-X, perhaps push processed a stop. I’ve done street scenes at MIDNIGHT with such a set up in the ’70s (not quite contemporaneous but close enough). Also I found a full color picture done of the Skate from the same time frame, that appears to be the same camera, so we know they had color film and needed the extra speed of a fast Black and White (i.e. it was too dark to use their color film).
Some Excerpts from that prior thread:
arctic-astronomy (08:54:38) : There’s an awful lot of light in the “17 March 1959? north pole picture, given that the sun is still about 1.5o below the horizon and hasn’t yet risen at the north pole on March 17.
Or fast film and a fast lens. The soft focus foreground and slightly soft at the tail of the boat indicate a very open fast lens. Their seems to be a graininess (though hard to tell through the binary translation) that would indicate a fast B&W film. There appears to be slight motion blur to some of the peoples heads that would indicate a shutter speed of about 1/30 to 1/50 second (though again, access to a better image would let me make a more reliable evaluation). The overall flatness of the image implies fast film, pushed processing, or very flat lighting (such as indirect lighting from could diffusion / reflection) or all three.
I would speculate that this is a picture taken on about an ASA 400 film, perhaps a 200 ASA pushed to 800 at most, with an f stop of about F2, and a shutter speed of about 1/30 of a second. I would speculate it was 120 format, since 35mm was still relatively new then, but it could be 35mm as Tri-X was introduced in that format in 1954. If 35mm, the photographer had to have a very steady hand or a stable gunwale to brace against. IIRC, a 2 stop push was well known then and Kodak Tri-X was introduced in the ’40s with an ASA of 200. I don’t remember the 1959 speed. Given that I’ve taken street pictures at night with such settings, diffuse over the horizon sunlight from cloud bounce ought to provide more than enough light. I see nothing in the picture to indicate it is fraudulent.
Compare it with the second picture of the Skate. Much higher contrast with hot spots, sharp edges, greater depth of field, even what looks like a small quantity of cloud detail near the conning tower. Much more light, lens stopped down, shutter faster, less / no push processing, and though the figures are smaller making it harder to determine – they do not seem to show motion blur (even though there is what might be an expectation of motion given the bent posture of the bodies).
Finally, though they are color pictures, the more recent photos such as the Hawkbill show a hard crisp sharpness with great detail and depth of field of a full daylight snow scene consistent with a full sun environment. That is what is missing from the Skate pictures and what you would expect to see if the pictures had been taken in full sun with the sun above the horizon.
Again, access to better copies of the image would allow a more definitive analysis, but these pictures are all consistent with their asserted context.
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Looking at the original here:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0857806.jpg
It’s a bit better image, but not by much. Less flat contrast, but not by enough to change my opinion. Sharpness is better, so I’m less critical of the lens quality. If the image format reflects the film format, it’s closest to 122 film size (also called ‘postcard’) though it doesn’t exactly match anything. Aspect ratio of about 1.66 : 1 where 35mm is 1.5 : 1 and 120 format 6×9 is also 1.5:1 and some odd 120 frame sizes are 1.5x : 1 with postcard at 1.69:1 so I’d guess at this point it was a ‘postcard’ camera in 122 film format or 1.5:1 image with the foreground cropped to remove excess water and raft to fit on a postcard. It is possible it’s a 35mm rangefinder camera (they were around then and would fit easier on a small sub) and if this image is as sharp as it gets, well, even old poor 120 in 6 x 9 had better sharpness than this image. I’d expected the original to be much larger than this and with better resolution. My error of assumption / guessing.
So at this point the only change I’d make is to say I think it’s a 35mm rangefinder with Tri-X in ASA 200, possibly push processed a stop or two, stabilized by resting on the raft gunwale and with the image cropped to remove excess foreground from that ersatz ‘tripod’.
and

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…