Tony Hake | Examiner.com

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)reported that faulty satellite data was responsible for it underreporting the amount of Arctic sea ice by an area the size of California.  Beginning in early January, “sensor drift” caused an underestimation of ice that grew until the error was finally caught in the mid-February.  Internet visitors who look to the NSIDC for data sent emails to the center and, “it became clear that there was a significant problem—sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean.”

In a statement on their website, NSIDC says, “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. See below for more details.  Near-real-time products do not undergo the same level of quality control as the final archived products, which are used in scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals.”

NSIDC is quick to point out that although the error was significant, it only affects the recent data and not historical data which has previously shown Arctic sea ice to reach its lowest levels in 2007.  This error does not affect those and previous findings showing the sea ice is retreating. 

This problem does however once again highlight the need for close analysis of climate data.  As we reported previously, last November NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported that October 2008 was the hottest on record.  However, they were forced to recant the claim when two blogger meteorologists went through the data and found a number of anomalies.

The chart below shows the faulty data (blue) as compared to the actual amount of Arctic sea ice (red). (NSIDC)