February 25, 2009

Shocka! Glitch Underestimates Artic Sea Ice

By 193,000 square miles.

A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers”[OMG, it's worse than we thought...ed] alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

That is one hell of a glitch

In other related news, NASA's global warming satellite crashes into ocean.

A NASA satellite designed to track carbon dioxide emissions failed to reach orbit and landed in the ocean early Tuesday in a mishap that could jeopardize its mission to better understand climate change.
Back to the drawing board.

By Stable Hand at 09:46 AM | |