From the “pictures actually do matter” department…NSIDC’s Mark Serreze is thrilled to get them
from Science News
Hundreds of high-resolution satellite photos of the Arctic sea ice taken during the past 10 years should be immediately declassified and released to the scientific research community, the National Research Council reported on July 15. Shortly after, the United States Geological Survey made about a thousand of the images available to the public through the Global Fiducials Library.
“Most people from the scientific community are not aware that these images have been collected,” says Stephanie Pfirman, chair of the NRC committee that wrote the report. “They’ll be very excited to see these results.”
The photos could help scientists study the rapid changes taking place in the Arctic, the committee members say. Current research efforts that might benefit include studies of polar bear habitats, of the movement of ice floes and of the formation and evolution of melt ponds — bodies of water that form on ice sheets and accelerate their melting.
“There are a lot of processes that we still don’t have a good handle on,” such as why Arctic ice is melting faster than models predict it should, says geographer Mark Serreze of the University of Colorado at Boulder. High-resolution satellite imagery is “just the sort of thing we need” to answer these questions, he says.
The satellite project began in the mid-1990s when environmental scientists teamed up with members of the intelligence community to create a program that would see whether “classified assets”, which might include aircraft or satellites, could collect data useful for scientific purposes. Called Medea, the program approved the use of pre-existing satellites to take pictures beginning in 1999 at one-meter resolution of four Arctic sites. Two additional locations were added in 2005. The only catch was that the photographs could not be released until a committee had determined that they were scientifically useful.
h/t to Ric Werme
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Why was this stuff classified in the first place? secret ice?
How come you can view satellite images on Google earth and see details right down to shrubs, cars, chimney pots etc, but these ‘high resolution’ images can’t even show a polar bear, unless there are 2 swimming together?
@ur momisugly James (12:01:12) said:
“Is that a submarine pushing up through the ice in the photo?”
I think it’s the shadow cast by some clouds, if you look at it carefully.
Now we can see if the Catlin Expedition really did make it as far as they said.
Just trying to be funny here.
Classified resource used to gather the info.
Simply divulging the maximum resolution of the photograph taken, would seriously impact the satellite surveillance operations as it would tell a knowledgeable adversary the limits of our technology, and more importantly might tip them off to a means to spoof the satellites or blind them.
Since it is a classified means of data collection, everything that comes off that system is by default classified data unless it is specifically reviewed and released or down graded to a lower classification.
Release of that sort of data would likely involve down sampling the original images to the 1 meter resolution mentioned to obscure the technological capabilities of the satellites.
That said, a competent observer can get a very good idea of the limiting resolution of the satellite by applying well known physical principles such as the diffraction limit and objective size of the camera and the Dawes’ limit for a perfect lens of that size and altitude.
http://www.telescope-optics.net/telescope_resolution.htm
That is one of the reasons the major players in satellite intelligence have very high resolution cameras to take pictures of orbital objects.
By taking pictures of the other guys satellite, they can make some good educated guesses regarding the technological limits of the observations it can make.
Even if the other guy can calculate that you can see x resolution, you don’t want to physically confirm that calculation. Releasing the raw images would do that.
That is why they are probably down sampled to the 1 meter resolution even though most open sources estimate their limiting resolution based on the physical laws, is probably under the size of a base ball. The old “able to read a license plate” statement is one of those open source estimates, that is widely debated, and based on the above physical laws of optics is probably not far off the mark, especially with modern computer image enhancement technology.
Larry
Hmm, maybe Arctic ice is a quantum enigma, the act of observing it causes it to change to some other state and disappear. If we just stop looking at it and measuring it all will be well. LOL.
Seriously, Arctic ice being declassified is absurd (not that some of the pictures should not be classified if showing military hardware).
Alexej Buergin (08:01:28) :
“If you calculate the boiling point of water at altitude, then the calculation is based upon models (boiling point vs air pressure, air pressure vs altitude).”
The difference is that these calculations are directly measurable to confirm the accuracy of of the equations (model). No assumptions are needed. They have been tested and verified. Climate models are loaded with assumptions (free parameters) that are not measurable or testable. One mathematical phycisist claimed that given enough free parameters, he can model an elephant that can fly.
Climate science has created a CO2 that does more than many of us think is possible. Since the models assumptions are not all measurable or testable, there is no proof of this super CO2, and unfortunately only time will offer the disproof needed to debunk this once and for all, but by then the damage of carbon cap and trade/carbon tax may be done.
I wonder if they’ve taken the time to look at the data instead of the photots to see that Artic ice is in a growing trend ?
“Is that a submarine pushing up through the ice in the photo?”
“I think it’s the shadow cast by some clouds, if you look at it carefully.”
It’s neither, the arctic is just happy to see you!
hotrod (15:05:05)
Thanks for the explanation re security Larry.
Some other Arctic pictures I’ve seen gave me the impession that polar bears had a habit of balancing on ice spikes, bit like an audition for the circus. 🙂
Vincent
I think Google Earth is supplemented by aerial shots from aeroplanes for inhabited regions. Try zooming down in the middle of nowhere, you will probably find you can see much less.