[asa] Satellite sea ice sensor has "catastrophic failure" - data faulty for the last 45 or more days

[image: 2008-science-winner]
The 2008 weblog awards winner for Best Science Blog
*http://wattsupwiththat.com/

NSIDC: satellite sea ice sensor has "catastrophic failure" - data faulty for
the last 45 or more days * ("Although we believe that data *prior to* early
January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check in the coming
days. ...it became clear that there was a significant problem -
sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean. ..."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/18/nsidc-satellite-sea-ice-sensor-has-catastrophic-failure-data-faulty-for-the-last-45-days/#comments

Click for larger image [at above link]

Today NSIDC announced they had discovered the reason why. The sensor on the
Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program<http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/index.html>(DMSP) satellite they
use had degraded and now apparently failed to the
point of being unusable. Compounding the bad news they discovered it had
been in slow decline for almost two months, *which caused a bias in the
arctic sea ice data that underestimated the total sea ice by 500,000 square
kilometers.* This will likely affect the January NSIDC sea ice totals.
.... [snip]

 *John Egan* (22:29:11) asks :
Will NSIDC issue a correction to the media?
"Arctic sea ice coverage was at its sixth lowest January extent since
satellite records began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data
Center. Average ice extent during January was 5.43 million square miles."
This was released in a number of news outlets -
http://www.examiner.com/x-219-Denver-Weather-Examiner~y2009m2d18-January-was-seventh-warmest-for-globe
And
was also part of the larger NOAA January report -
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090218_globalstats.html *<>

William Schlesinger on IPCC: "something on the order of 20 percent have had
some dealing with climate."
*17 02 2009
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/17/william-schlesinger-on-ipcc-something-on-the-order-of-20-percent-have-had-some-dealing-with-climate/

This is a bit disturbing, though in retrospect, not surprising. One of our
local IPCC wonks <http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/07_05_10/ipcc.shtml> at
Chico State University, Jeff
Price<http://news.csuchico.edu/2007/10/12/un-climate-control-panel-shares-2007-nobel-prize-with-al-gore-csu-chico-environmental-scientist-one-of-lead-authors/>,
is a biologist, but lectures me about climate all the same. - Anthony

*by Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies
Watch<http://www.climatestrategieswatch.com/>

*I had intended to return to this point when I originally posted about this
debate<http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/02/12/john-christy-debates-william-schlesinger/>last
week, but time got away from me. Thankfully, my colleague Roy Cordato
brought
it up today <http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=18982>:

*During the question and answer session
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hd141-Hac>of last week?s William
Schlesinger <http://www.ecostudies.org/people_president.html>/John
Christy global
warming debate<http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/%20http:/www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=18946>,
(alarmist) Schlesinger was asked how many members of United Nation?s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were actual climate
scientists. It is well known that many, if not most, of its members are not
scientists at all. Its president, for example, is an
economist<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_Pachauri>.

*Picture:
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/13/Rajendra_Pachauri_wideweb__470x317,0.jpg
Rajendra Pachauri, *Chairman of the IPCC* - trained initially as a* railway
engineer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_Pachauri>

**This question came after Schlesinger had cited the IPCC as an authority
for his position. His answer was quite telling.

First he broadened it to include not just climate scientists but also those
who have had ?some dealing with the climate.? His complete answer was that
he thought, ?something on the order of 20 percent have had some dealing with
climate.? In other words, even IPCC worshiper Schlesinger now acknowledges
that 80 percent of the IPCC membership had absolutely no dealing with the
climate as part of their academic studies.

*This shatters so much of the alarmists' claim, as they almost always appeal
to the IPCC as their ultimate authority.

- Lynn

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Received on Thu Feb 19 06:39:34 2009