The melt extent algorithm used by Greenland Ice Sheet Today has been overestimating the melt extent, and as a result, daily images posted on this site in February and March may have indicated melt where none occurred.
This makes you wonder what other kinds of issues remain undetected in the satellite data. NSIDC has had to issue corrections in the past, when it was pointed out that their data and reality didn’t match. – Anthony
The algorithm for the Greenland Ice Sheet Today daily melt extent has been revised to account for unusually warm winter snow layers and residual meltwater deep in the snow. Meltwater from last summer’s intense melt season did not completely re-freeze through at least mid December. The adjusted algorithm shows greatly reduced melt extent for early 2013. This much lower extent is more consistent with available weather and climate records.
Melt extent and distribution
Figure 1. These images show cumulative melt extent before the algorithm correction (left) and after the correction (right). A few areas indicating one to two days of melting in southeast Greenland remain in the revised map. The red dot shows the location of the Danish AWS. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center – Click for hires imageAs shown in Figure 1, the adjustment to the algorithm resulted in fewer melt days than previously indicated. The revised image at right shows new surface melting in 2013 in a few small areas along the central southeastern Greenland coast, within the region of earlier spurious melt signals but greatly reduced.
Conditions in context
Figure 2. This image shows air temperature anomaly for Greenland for the period December 2012 to February 2013. Reds and oranges indicate higher than average air temperatures. The temperatures shown are at approximately 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) in altitude, appropriate for coastal Greenland regions. However, central Greenland is above this altitude, and values shown there do not represent the true surface conditions well. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA ESRL Physical Sciences DivisionTemperatures in Greenland have been higher than average this winter, with air temperatures near the coast averaging 2.0 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (4 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1981 to 2010 average. This has in part been a result of the persistent circulation pattern for the Arctic this winter, characterized by a negative Arctic Oscillation (AO). The AO is a measure of the intensity of the general pattern of low pressure over the northern high latitudes. A negative AO indicates higher-than-average pressures near the North Pole, allowing more frequent southward cold air outbreaks, and more intrusions of warm air masses from higher temperature areas. Despite these anomalously high temperatures along the Greenland coast, temperatures were not high enough to result in melting.
Adjusted algorithm and melt images
Figure 3. This plot shows surface air temperature at a PROMICE on-ice Automated Weather Station (AWS) near the southeastern Greenland ice sheet edge for early 2013. Temperatures did not exceed freezing at this site. Data from PROMICE were provided by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) and are freely available. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center and J. Box, Geological Survey of Denmark and GreenlandThe melt extent algorithm used by Greenland Ice Sheet Today has been overestimating the melt extent, and as a result, daily images posted on this site in February and March may have indicated melt where none occurred. While the algorithm was indicating some coastal melt in February and early March, a comparison with weather data for Nuuk (the Greenland capital city, located along the southwest of the island) and data from the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) suggested these might be spurious melt readings. The local Automated Weather Station (AWS) data from a glacier along the southeastern coast (the Mittivakkat glacier AWS, shown by a red dot in Figure 1; data in Figure 3) indicate that the air temperature did not rise to the melting point (0 degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit) in February or early March.
Figure 4. A model of the snowpack conditions indicates residual liquid water in the deep snowpack in southeastern Greenland. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center and X. Fettweis, Université de Liège, BelgiumDuring this period, starting around mid-February in southeast Greenland, the brightness temperatures in the upper few meters of the snowpack were 2 to 10 degrees Celsius (4 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than those observed during any other year in the 34-year record (1979 to 2012). While surface melt is not unprecedented in Greenland near the coast in February and March, the totals posted prior to March 14 were a result of these unusual snow temperature conditions, and not ongoing surface melt. This winter has seen unusually warm snow at depth on the ice sheet, following the intense melting that occurred last summer.
The melt detection method, based on passive microwave emissions, is primarily sensitive to near-surface conditions, but has some input from the snowpack down several meters (10 to 20 feet). Heavy snow fell during the relatively warm winter, burying and insulating deeper snow. This contributed to anomalously high temperatures for the uppermost layers of snow this winter. Additionally, models based on snowpack properties suggested that some 2012 meltwater remained unfrozen at 5 meters depth (approximately 16 feet) in mid-December. The model results are consistent with observations from JAXA’s AMSR-2 sensor.
The algorithm was adjusted by combining the trend of observed brightness temperatures with a model of the expected microwave emission in the channels used for melt detection (the SSM/I sensor’s 37 GHz Horizontal polarization channel). This adjustment is generally performed every year in March to calibrate the melt detection thresholds. However, because of the unusual condition of the snowpack, the adjustment needed to be made much earlier than ever before.
Further information
Fettweis, X., M. Tedesco, M. van den Broeke, and J. Ettema, 2011. Melting trends over the Greenland ice sheet (1958-2009) from spaceborne microwave data and regional climate models. The Cryosphere 5, 359-375, doi: 10.5194/tc-5-359-2011.
Numerobis, testing and validation should be done before the system is fully operational, not after. That eliminates a lot of errors and embarrassment. I’ve been responsible for implementing several large and small accounting systems and these systems were extensively tested before the green light was given. We still experienced some glitches, but they were minor compared to some we found during testing. As one computer systems administrator once told me, “in a million lines of code, an error rate of 1/10th of one per cent is one thousand lines”.
Jim G
March 22, 2013 7:59 am
Ever wonder why it’s called Greenland and not Whiteland? They once farmed here and raised live stock. I guess global warming ruined that for them. If the ice ever melts they will be back to what it was 1000 years ago and be much better off in the bargain. I am continuously underwhelmed by the knowledge of today’s “scientists”.
Darren Potter
March 22, 2013 8:01 am
From: (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/why-ice-loss-and-sea-level-measurements-via-satellite-and-the-new-shepard-et-al-paper-are-highly-uncertain-at-the-moment/)
“New proposal from NASA JPL admits to “spurious” errors in current satellite based sea level and ice altimetry, calls for new space platform to fix the problem.”
Hmmm, would spending several BILLION dollars on NASA’s new GRASP satellite to provided a TRF of ~1mm – countered a “Greenland ice melt overestimated due to satellite data algorithm” problem? Is a hosed algorithm considered a “spurious” error?
Come on now, those are irrelevant questions when its Taxpayer $$$ providing the funding!
Steve Keohane
March 22, 2013 8:08 am
knr says:March 22, 2013 at 7:08 am
How lucky do you have to be to find all the ‘mistakes’ work in favour of the ideas your pushing ?
Didn’t you know, climate scientists are the luckiest people on earth. All corrections and biases support their every conjecture. When you are on a mission to save the planet from the dross of humanity, the Force is with you!
Darren Potter
March 22, 2013 8:35 am
>> Village Idiot says: ” Proof (if we needed it) that the “Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt” of 2012 didn’t really happen”
> Chris4692 says: “(Others as well) The article says no such thing. ”
True it doesn’t. However, how many times are you willing to go to bat for a Big Government Agency who keeps making Headline grabbing GW claims; only to find out later there are problems with said Agency’s work that make their Headline grabbing total Bovine Scatology?
Owen in GA
March 22, 2013 8:42 am
Marcos says:
March 22, 2013 at 5:16 am
i’m confused. why are satellite sensor results being put into a computer model to come up with its ‘data’? shouldn’t the sensor data, oh i dont know, be the data?
Marcos,
The “actual data” is a series of intensity measurements of a set of known wavelengths. The model they are referring to is the one that says “>X_n intensity at Y_n wavelength equals ice at temperature Z”, etc. . The data from the sensor are totally incomprehensible without some underlying model to tell you what the numbers mean. That the model assumptions need to be checked against ground truth more frequently than they are is absolutely without question, but the “raw numbers” have no meaning by themselves.
John W
March 22, 2013 8:53 am
@Lank or anybody else……do you have a link for that 1922 article? Thanks if you can post it….I want that link!
I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post – 90 years ago.
Yep – ice melt was a tad overestimated back then too – and without the help of satellites!!
As anyone who has ever been in the snow can tell you, the more snow depth you have, the more insulation you have. I find it hard to believe this hadn’t ever been accounted for.
For anyone who skis the backcountry and does avalanche assessment, this is all pretty common stuff. In the mountains where I live, even a freezing rain layer burried under enough insulating snow has the potential to metamorphize due to warmth from the ground changing its crystal structure (even though the air temperature is well below freezing.)
Seems to be the case here that more insulating snow decreased the temperature gradient between the warm ground and the cold air. Too much insulation means the warm layer never cooled off as much, fooling the satellite. At least that’s what I understand from their release.
as an OT aside, Its kind of cool in that when there is cold air and shallow snowpack, the cold air meets the warm air from the ground and crystalizes whatever moisture is available. These crystals are very sugary and allow upper layers to slide on them creating avalnche potential. What’s cool is that it’s like a warm ocean front meeting an arctic air mass but all happening within the snow layers. A perfect microcosm of the weather inside the snow layers!
James at 48
March 22, 2013 9:39 am
Pixel counting (or not counting) issues. Issue discerning true edges of ice. Fresh snow on top or not. Etc, etc, etc. Just like sea ice remote sensing. Frought with all sorts of pitfalls.
Louis Hooffstetter
March 22, 2013 10:01 am
Sarc on:
“The melt detection method, based on passive microwave emissions, is primarily sensitive to near-surface conditions…”
Well there’s your problem. Locals living along the SE coast got microwave ovens for Christmas.
If Greenland is loosing all this ice over the past 30+ years, I’d dearly love to know how they explain the Glacier Girl.
Thanks, Debate. It actually does make sense. Snow falls on the Greenland ice cap. Year after year. It freezes and is compressed to ice. The ice is thick enough that the weight makes it flow out slowly around the edges of Greenland. Note that over the years, the top of the ice cap is gaining new layers of snow each year … while at the same time the old ice from snows thousands of years ago is being squeezed out all around the perimeter of Greenland and breaking off into the ocean.
Which answers your question about the burial of the Glacier Girl. The ice gain is happening continuously up on the ice cap, year after year—and overall, it is matched by the continuous ice loss around the edges, so the whole is in general equilibrium.
If the Glacier Girl had never been discovered, in thousands and thousands of years it too would have been squeezed out somewhere along the side of Greenland, and some tourist would have gaped to see the smashed remains emerging from the ice … by the time it was discovered, it had already moved three miles towards the coast.
w.
numerobis
March 22, 2013 12:58 pm
“Numerobis, testing and validation should be done before the system is fully operational, not after.”
The claim here is that the underlying assumptions (that the surface would completely freeze in winter) no longer hold, so they had to fix the model to match new realities.
I hadn’t heard anyone trumpeting about this fictitious early melt; seems the scientists in charge quickly realized there was a bug.
Resourceguy
March 22, 2013 1:04 pm
Science ended sometime around the start of the new millennium and that is the main accomplishment of climate science. It corrupted the rest of science.
Lank remembers
March 22, 2013 4:32 pm
JohnW
“I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post – 90 years ago.”
If you don’t care to subscribe you can find a copy the original text and commentary here… http://www.snopes.com/politics/science/globalwarming1922.asp
half tide rock
March 22, 2013 8:05 pm
Oh I love it! It is called Field Checking! Calibration! They used to teach it’s importance. Field checking is almost a lost art. If Anthony et al. didn’t field check the surface stations the lemmings would still be chasing the stupid data over the cliff. Ha!
Puppet_Master_Blaster_Master
March 22, 2013 9:09 pm
Anything that Marco Tedesco has had a hand in I, 1 ignore at first and 2 then stay very far away from.
Marco is all BS and no science.
Sad
The melt extent algorithm used by Greenland Ice Sheet Today has been overestimating the melt extent, and as a result, daily images posted on this site in February and March may have indicated melt where none occurred.
What’s the phrase? Oh, yeah, the inconvenient truth….
BruceC
March 23, 2013 3:24 am
For any one wanting a great site in regards to Glacier Girl (including a small map of crash site), see here; http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
Not only was it, and all the other aircraft from the squadron, buried under 260 odd feet of ice, it was located over a mile away from where it (they) crash landed.
BruceC
March 23, 2013 3:36 am
@John W. If you were interested in the 1922 article, you may be interested in this one as well.
(sorry for the long post as I can’t remember where I got it from, maybe Trove???) IS THERE AN OPEN POLAR SEA? [From the Boston Traveller.]
The appearance of Dr Kane’s long expected narrative of Arctic Expeditions will again awaken an interest in the question of an open sea near the North Pole; for his discovery of that sea, with the varied details of every circumstance connected with it, can now be investigated, and the evidence of its continuance to the Pole of the earth be duly weighed.
The idea of a warmer region than the North Pole, which must be accompanied by open water, and, as a natural consequence, with animal life in a greater abundance than in the permanent ice-belted district further south, is not a new one. More than two centuries ago the appearance of open water in the highest latitudes first suggested it; and, although certain theorists contended against it, the opinion continued to prevail even to our day; and now, although there has been nothing certain of its existence, there have been such accumulative facts, that it only waited the indubitable evidence, such as Dr Kane has presented to establish the theory.
The Dutch whalemen above and around the island of Spitzburgen have often pushed through the drift ice into open spaces of sea towards the Pole, and Baron Von Wrangel, when forty miles from the coast of Artic Asia, saw, as he thought, a ‘vast illimitable ocean’ and, we doubt not many navigators, without being aware of the fact, have really been in this sea, but who did not dare to venture any further towards the mysterious Pole. Dr Scoresby among others, may be mentioned as one who has been within its area. This veteran Arctic navigator was engaged for more than thirty years in the Greenland fishery, and discovered the coast, and served on the eastern side which bears his name. On this occasion he passed the pack of floating ice, by keeping near the Greenland coast, and found himself in open water beyond. Had he been prepared to pursue his voyage, be might have pushed on nearer the Pole than any navigator before or since, but he did not dare venture beyond a point from which he was uncertain of escaping before the season had passed, and therefore retreated through the pack. Captain Parry in his well-known boat voyage, attempted to cross this floating ice, and was provided for the purpose; but it was unfortunately harder and rougher than he anticipated, and although making progress northward over the drift, he found that it was actually bearing him southward. The projectors of that expedition thought the plan the most feasible one to reach the Pole, entertaining the belief that if they could pass this floating ice they would find an open sea beyond.
It must here be remarked that in the summer north winds prevail in these seas, and aided by a strong current setting to the south the whole mass of ice accumulated and forced in during the winter, breaks up, and is carried toward the south. This belt of broken ice, or the ‘pack,’ as it is called, forms the only impediment to an approach to the Pole by the North Atlantic Ocean. In the fall when strong southerly winds, such of this pack as remains is again forced towards the Pole, in a measure filling up the open from which it has come; but whether there are lands or existing currents near the Pole to prevent its accumulating there, or whether that a warmer temperature exists to dissolve it, remains to be seen.
Dr Kane wintered in Smith’s Straits, near the 79th parallel. From this point the following spring he sent parties over the ice northward about 125 miles in a direct line, when they came to an open sea, the shores of which they traced on the east nearly to 81 degrees 30 minutes, and on the western side to 82 degrees 30 minutes, approximately. At this far remote point, and from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon of nearly forty miles, the ears of the party “were gladdened with the novel music of the dashing waves and a surf, breaking in among rocks at their feet which stayed further progress.’ As they travelled north the channel expanded into an iceless area, and taking 36 miles as the mean radium open to reliable survey, the sea had a justly estimated extent of more than 4,000 square miles.
This was in the month of June, yet there was every indication that this water had been open during a most severe Arctic winter, for the shores did not have the “ice-belt” which elsewhere in Smith’s Strait indicates alike both permanent and annual freezing. Animal life, too, to which Dr Kane had been a stranger to the south, now burst upon the party. Geese and ducks were abundant, particularly the Brent goose, a migratory bird, which the Doctor had seen on his previous voyage in Wellington Channel, when they were flying toward the south. The rocks and the shore were crowded with sea-swallows, whose habits require open water, and which were then breeding; in fact, to use the Doctor’s words “it was a picture of life all around.” Of plants there is less said, as the season was too early for their development. This increase of animal and vegetable life, with the rise of the thermometer in the water, and the melted snow upon the rocks, were indicative of a milder climate towards the Pole.
Another fact worth dwelling on is, that after a severe gale of several days from the north, there was no accumulation of floating ice, which is strong evidence that there was warmer water from whence the wind came, without ice, and that from an elevation of 580 feet, the open sea was “still without a limit, and moved by a heavy swell, free of ice.”
In view of these highly interesting facts, the intrepid navigator does not venture to discuss the phenomena which give rise to them.
‘How far,’ says the Doctor, ‘this sea may extend — whether it exists simply as a feature of the immediate region, or as a part of the great and unexplored area communicating with the Polar basin — and what may be the argument in favour of one or the other hypothesis, or the explanations which reconciles it with established laws, may be questions for men skilled in scientific deductions. Coming as it did, a mysterious fluidity in the midst of vast plains of solid ice, it was well calculated to arouse the emotions of the highest order, and I do not believe there was a man among us who did not long for the means of embarking upon its bright and lonely waters’.
We have little doubt the interesting facts made known by Dr Kane will lead to another Artic expedition. At some future day we may recur to the subject again, and venture to suggest some ideas toward a plan for reaching the mysterious Pole.
The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News (WA) – Friday 10 April 1857
barry
March 23, 2013 4:03 am
This is an interesting admission:
The melt extent algorithm used by Greenland Ice Sheet Today has been overestimating the melt extent, and as a result, daily images posted on this site in February and March may have indicated melt where none occurred.
This makes you wonder what other kinds of issues remain undetected in the satellite data.
Why use the word ‘admission’, like they’d been trying to hide something? It just sets people off (look at the comments).
They do more than just ‘wonder’ about issues with data and methods. They investigate and amend when they discover problems. They checked their own work and corrected it, and then they publicised it. Sounds like the epitome of good science to me. NSIDC has always been up front about errors and data limitations. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/04/yet-another-error-in-nsidc-graphs/
But I see the peanut gallery has found this story energising. NSIDC changed something, so they’re either fishy or their processes are too flawed to be useful. Eyeroll.
Numerobis, testing and validation should be done before the system is fully operational, not after. That eliminates a lot of errors and embarrassment. I’ve been responsible for implementing several large and small accounting systems and these systems were extensively tested before the green light was given. We still experienced some glitches, but they were minor compared to some we found during testing. As one computer systems administrator once told me, “in a million lines of code, an error rate of 1/10th of one per cent is one thousand lines”.
Ever wonder why it’s called Greenland and not Whiteland? They once farmed here and raised live stock. I guess global warming ruined that for them. If the ice ever melts they will be back to what it was 1000 years ago and be much better off in the bargain. I am continuously underwhelmed by the knowledge of today’s “scientists”.
From: (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/why-ice-loss-and-sea-level-measurements-via-satellite-and-the-new-shepard-et-al-paper-are-highly-uncertain-at-the-moment/)
“New proposal from NASA JPL admits to “spurious” errors in current satellite based sea level and ice altimetry, calls for new space platform to fix the problem.”
Hmmm, would spending several BILLION dollars on NASA’s new GRASP satellite to provided a TRF of ~1mm – countered a “Greenland ice melt overestimated due to satellite data algorithm” problem? Is a hosed algorithm considered a “spurious” error?
Come on now, those are irrelevant questions when its Taxpayer $$$ providing the funding!
knr says:March 22, 2013 at 7:08 am
How lucky do you have to be to find all the ‘mistakes’ work in favour of the ideas your pushing ?
Didn’t you know, climate scientists are the luckiest people on earth. All corrections and biases support their every conjecture. When you are on a mission to save the planet from the dross of humanity, the Force is with you!
>> Village Idiot says: ” Proof (if we needed it) that the “Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt” of 2012 didn’t really happen”
> Chris4692 says: “(Others as well) The article says no such thing. ”
True it doesn’t. However, how many times are you willing to go to bat for a Big Government Agency who keeps making Headline grabbing GW claims; only to find out later there are problems with said Agency’s work that make their Headline grabbing total Bovine Scatology?
Marcos,
The “actual data” is a series of intensity measurements of a set of known wavelengths. The model they are referring to is the one that says “>X_n intensity at Y_n wavelength equals ice at temperature Z”, etc. . The data from the sensor are totally incomprehensible without some underlying model to tell you what the numbers mean. That the model assumptions need to be checked against ground truth more frequently than they are is absolutely without question, but the “raw numbers” have no meaning by themselves.
@Lank or anybody else……do you have a link for that 1922 article? Thanks if you can post it….I want that link!
I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post – 90 years ago.
Yep – ice melt was a tad overestimated back then too – and without the help of satellites!!
that Al Gore and his rythms
As anyone who has ever been in the snow can tell you, the more snow depth you have, the more insulation you have. I find it hard to believe this hadn’t ever been accounted for.
For anyone who skis the backcountry and does avalanche assessment, this is all pretty common stuff. In the mountains where I live, even a freezing rain layer burried under enough insulating snow has the potential to metamorphize due to warmth from the ground changing its crystal structure (even though the air temperature is well below freezing.)
Seems to be the case here that more insulating snow decreased the temperature gradient between the warm ground and the cold air. Too much insulation means the warm layer never cooled off as much, fooling the satellite. At least that’s what I understand from their release.
as an OT aside, Its kind of cool in that when there is cold air and shallow snowpack, the cold air meets the warm air from the ground and crystalizes whatever moisture is available. These crystals are very sugary and allow upper layers to slide on them creating avalnche potential. What’s cool is that it’s like a warm ocean front meeting an arctic air mass but all happening within the snow layers. A perfect microcosm of the weather inside the snow layers!
Pixel counting (or not counting) issues. Issue discerning true edges of ice. Fresh snow on top or not. Etc, etc, etc. Just like sea ice remote sensing. Frought with all sorts of pitfalls.
Sarc on:
“The melt detection method, based on passive microwave emissions, is primarily sensitive to near-surface conditions…”
Well there’s your problem. Locals living along the SE coast got microwave ovens for Christmas.
John W says:
March 22, 2013 at 8:53 am
@Lank or anybody else……do you have a link for that 1922 article? Thanks if you can post it….I want that link! http://www.damninteresting.com/exhuming-the-glacier-girl/
Sorry wrong link John , here’s the right one . http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/192886482.html?dids=192886482:192886482&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&fmac=&date=Nov+2%2C+1922&author=&desc=Arctic+Ocean+Getting+Warm
On the topic of ice we have:
“Migrating birds leave frozen Germany” (shortly after their Spring arrival)
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130315-48551.html#.UUyeBfWQn4w
“As snow and flooding causes chaos across the country, forecasters have warned that another spell of bitterly cold weather could make this the coldest March in 50 years.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9948450/The-competition-for-coldest-March-in-50-years.html
It seems as if Spring is arriving earlier and earlier as global warming takes hold. I’m now waiting for plants to move downhill.
Rational Db8 says:
March 22, 2013 at 12:33 am
Thanks, Debate. It actually does make sense. Snow falls on the Greenland ice cap. Year after year. It freezes and is compressed to ice. The ice is thick enough that the weight makes it flow out slowly around the edges of Greenland. Note that over the years, the top of the ice cap is gaining new layers of snow each year … while at the same time the old ice from snows thousands of years ago is being squeezed out all around the perimeter of Greenland and breaking off into the ocean.
Which answers your question about the burial of the Glacier Girl. The ice gain is happening continuously up on the ice cap, year after year—and overall, it is matched by the continuous ice loss around the edges, so the whole is in general equilibrium.
If the Glacier Girl had never been discovered, in thousands and thousands of years it too would have been squeezed out somewhere along the side of Greenland, and some tourist would have gaped to see the smashed remains emerging from the ice … by the time it was discovered, it had already moved three miles towards the coast.
w.
“Numerobis, testing and validation should be done before the system is fully operational, not after.”
The claim here is that the underlying assumptions (that the surface would completely freeze in winter) no longer hold, so they had to fix the model to match new realities.
I hadn’t heard anyone trumpeting about this fictitious early melt; seems the scientists in charge quickly realized there was a bug.
Science ended sometime around the start of the new millennium and that is the main accomplishment of climate science. It corrupted the rest of science.
JohnW
“I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post – 90 years ago.”
If you don’t care to subscribe you can find a copy the original text and commentary here… http://www.snopes.com/politics/science/globalwarming1922.asp
Oh I love it! It is called Field Checking! Calibration! They used to teach it’s importance. Field checking is almost a lost art. If Anthony et al. didn’t field check the surface stations the lemmings would still be chasing the stupid data over the cliff. Ha!
Anything that Marco Tedesco has had a hand in I, 1 ignore at first and 2 then stay very far away from.
Marco is all BS and no science.
Sad
Ooops!
Honey, I think I shrunk the ice?
What’s the phrase? Oh, yeah, the inconvenient truth….
For any one wanting a great site in regards to Glacier Girl (including a small map of crash site), see here;
http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
Not only was it, and all the other aircraft from the squadron, buried under 260 odd feet of ice, it was located over a mile away from where it (they) crash landed.
@John W. If you were interested in the 1922 article, you may be interested in this one as well.
(sorry for the long post as I can’t remember where I got it from, maybe Trove???)
IS THERE AN OPEN POLAR SEA?
[From the Boston Traveller.]
The appearance of Dr Kane’s long expected narrative of Arctic Expeditions will again awaken an interest in the question of an open sea near the North Pole; for his discovery of that sea, with the varied details of every circumstance connected with it, can now be investigated, and the evidence of its continuance to the Pole of the earth be duly weighed.
The idea of a warmer region than the North Pole, which must be accompanied by open water, and, as a natural consequence, with animal life in a greater abundance than in the permanent ice-belted district further south, is not a new one. More than two centuries ago the appearance of open water in the highest latitudes first suggested it; and, although certain theorists contended against it, the opinion continued to prevail even to our day; and now, although there has been nothing certain of its existence, there have been such accumulative facts, that it only waited the indubitable evidence, such as Dr Kane has presented to establish the theory.
The Dutch whalemen above and around the island of Spitzburgen have often pushed through the drift ice into open spaces of sea towards the Pole, and Baron Von Wrangel, when forty miles from the coast of Artic Asia, saw, as he thought, a ‘vast illimitable ocean’ and, we doubt not many navigators, without being aware of the fact, have really been in this sea, but who did not dare to venture any further towards the mysterious Pole. Dr Scoresby among others, may be mentioned as one who has been within its area. This veteran Arctic navigator was engaged for more than thirty years in the Greenland fishery, and discovered the coast, and served on the eastern side which bears his name. On this occasion he passed the pack of floating ice, by keeping near the Greenland coast, and found himself in open water beyond. Had he been prepared to pursue his voyage, be might have pushed on nearer the Pole than any navigator before or since, but he did not dare venture beyond a point from which he was uncertain of escaping before the season had passed, and therefore retreated through the pack. Captain Parry in his well-known boat voyage, attempted to cross this floating ice, and was provided for the purpose; but it was unfortunately harder and rougher than he anticipated, and although making progress northward over the drift, he found that it was actually bearing him southward. The projectors of that expedition thought the plan the most feasible one to reach the Pole, entertaining the belief that if they could pass this floating ice they would find an open sea beyond.
It must here be remarked that in the summer north winds prevail in these seas, and aided by a strong current setting to the south the whole mass of ice accumulated and forced in during the winter, breaks up, and is carried toward the south. This belt of broken ice, or the ‘pack,’ as it is called, forms the only impediment to an approach to the Pole by the North Atlantic Ocean. In the fall when strong southerly winds, such of this pack as remains is again forced towards the Pole, in a measure filling up the open from which it has come; but whether there are lands or existing currents near the Pole to prevent its accumulating there, or whether that a warmer temperature exists to dissolve it, remains to be seen.
Dr Kane wintered in Smith’s Straits, near the 79th parallel. From this point the following spring he sent parties over the ice northward about 125 miles in a direct line, when they came to an open sea, the shores of which they traced on the east nearly to 81 degrees 30 minutes, and on the western side to 82 degrees 30 minutes, approximately. At this far remote point, and from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon of nearly forty miles, the ears of the party “were gladdened with the novel music of the dashing waves and a surf, breaking in among rocks at their feet which stayed further progress.’ As they travelled north the channel expanded into an iceless area, and taking 36 miles as the mean radium open to reliable survey, the sea had a justly estimated extent of more than 4,000 square miles.
This was in the month of June, yet there was every indication that this water had been open during a most severe Arctic winter, for the shores did not have the “ice-belt” which elsewhere in Smith’s Strait indicates alike both permanent and annual freezing. Animal life, too, to which Dr Kane had been a stranger to the south, now burst upon the party. Geese and ducks were abundant, particularly the Brent goose, a migratory bird, which the Doctor had seen on his previous voyage in Wellington Channel, when they were flying toward the south. The rocks and the shore were crowded with sea-swallows, whose habits require open water, and which were then breeding; in fact, to use the Doctor’s words “it was a picture of life all around.” Of plants there is less said, as the season was too early for their development. This increase of animal and vegetable life, with the rise of the thermometer in the water, and the melted snow upon the rocks, were indicative of a milder climate towards the Pole.
Another fact worth dwelling on is, that after a severe gale of several days from the north, there was no accumulation of floating ice, which is strong evidence that there was warmer water from whence the wind came, without ice, and that from an elevation of 580 feet, the open sea was “still without a limit, and moved by a heavy swell, free of ice.”
In view of these highly interesting facts, the intrepid navigator does not venture to discuss the phenomena which give rise to them.
‘How far,’ says the Doctor, ‘this sea may extend — whether it exists simply as a feature of the immediate region, or as a part of the great and unexplored area communicating with the Polar basin — and what may be the argument in favour of one or the other hypothesis, or the explanations which reconciles it with established laws, may be questions for men skilled in scientific deductions. Coming as it did, a mysterious fluidity in the midst of vast plains of solid ice, it was well calculated to arouse the emotions of the highest order, and I do not believe there was a man among us who did not long for the means of embarking upon its bright and lonely waters’.
We have little doubt the interesting facts made known by Dr Kane will lead to another Artic expedition. At some future day we may recur to the subject again, and venture to suggest some ideas toward a plan for reaching the mysterious Pole.
The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News (WA) – Friday 10 April 1857
Why use the word ‘admission’, like they’d been trying to hide something? It just sets people off (look at the comments).
They do more than just ‘wonder’ about issues with data and methods. They investigate and amend when they discover problems. They checked their own work and corrected it, and then they publicised it. Sounds like the epitome of good science to me. NSIDC has always been up front about errors and data limitations.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/04/yet-another-error-in-nsidc-graphs/
But I see the peanut gallery has found this story energising. NSIDC changed something, so they’re either fishy or their processes are too flawed to be useful. Eyeroll.