Wednesday, August 20, 2014

40% ice? Resolution at Cryosphere Today radically misses wide open water .

           Cryosphere today ,  August 18, 2014 .  Infamous McClintock passage of the NW passage.  The same channel responsible for the death of 126 sailors of HMS Erebus and Terror fame in 1848, during the said "mini ice age".  Notorious for its perineal rough and thick sea ice until about a decade or so ago, it now opens completely every melt season.  So as some say, 2014 melt is similar to a "recovery" or archipelago sea ice looks massively menacing and a return to a clogged NW passage of old.  Well CTpresentation, as above,  may hint that there may be some form of return to the past.  Not so:

NASA Eosdis view of the same area August 17 2014.  The Channel Prince of Wale shore has more than 20 nautical miles of open water, with very little ice,  not at all as presented by CT.  This probably means that CT uses grids in excess of 20 nautical miles.  Of which if there is 15% of ice the data would evaluate a wrong Area number.    So now the Passage is about to open by winds and further melting. But using CT data one would leave his boat moored in Baffin Bay or Cambridge Bay rather than attempt the passage at all,  and eventually return to the South if using the same coloured map.  WD August 20,2014

No comments:

Post a Comment