The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth.
NVDL: Who do you trust?
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- 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” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas
as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group
said on its Web site. “Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur
and it is one of the things that we account for during quality-
control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. |
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