A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated?
Recent estimates indicate that the Antarctic sea ice cover is expanding at a statistically significant rate with a magnitude one-third as large as the rapid rate of sea ice retreat in the Arctic. However, during the mid-2000s, with several fewer years in the observational record, the trend in Antarc...
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ftnasantrs:oai:casi.ntrs.nasa.gov:20140017660 2023-05-15T14:04:38+02:00 A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? Meier, W. N. Eisenman, I. Norris, J. N. Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available July 22, 2014 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140017660 unknown Document ID: 20140017660 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140017660 Copyright, Public use permitted CASI Earth Resources and Remote Sensing GSFC-E-DAA-TN17109 GSFC-E-DAA-TN21960 Cryosphere (ISSN 1994-0416) (e-ISSN 1994-0424); 8; 4; 1289–1296 2014 ftnasantrs 2019-07-21T08:05:28Z Recent estimates indicate that the Antarctic sea ice cover is expanding at a statistically significant rate with a magnitude one-third as large as the rapid rate of sea ice retreat in the Arctic. However, during the mid-2000s, with several fewer years in the observational record, the trend in Antarctic sea ice extent was reported to be considerably smaller and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Here, we show that much of the increase in the reported trend occurred due to the previously undocumented effect of a change in the way the satellite sea ice observations are processed for the widely used Bootstrap algorithm data set, rather than a physical increase in the rate of ice advance. Specifically, we find that a change in the intercalibration across a 1991 sensor transition when the data set was reprocessed in 2007 caused a substantial change in the long-term trend. Although our analysis does not definitively identify whether this change introduced an error or removed one, the resulting difference in the trends suggests that a substantial error exists in either the current data set or the version that was used prior to the mid- 2000s, and numerous studies that have relied on these observations should be reexamined to determine the sensitivity of their results to this change in the data set. Furthermore, a number of recent studies have investigated physical mechanisms for the observed expansion of the Antarctic sea ice cover. The results of this analysis raise the possibility that much of this expansion may be a spurious artifact of an error in the processing of the satellite observations. Other/Unknown Material Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Antarctic Arctic The Antarctic |
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
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ftnasantrs |
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topic |
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing |
spellingShingle |
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing Meier, W. N. Eisenman, I. Norris, J. N. A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
topic_facet |
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing |
description |
Recent estimates indicate that the Antarctic sea ice cover is expanding at a statistically significant rate with a magnitude one-third as large as the rapid rate of sea ice retreat in the Arctic. However, during the mid-2000s, with several fewer years in the observational record, the trend in Antarctic sea ice extent was reported to be considerably smaller and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Here, we show that much of the increase in the reported trend occurred due to the previously undocumented effect of a change in the way the satellite sea ice observations are processed for the widely used Bootstrap algorithm data set, rather than a physical increase in the rate of ice advance. Specifically, we find that a change in the intercalibration across a 1991 sensor transition when the data set was reprocessed in 2007 caused a substantial change in the long-term trend. Although our analysis does not definitively identify whether this change introduced an error or removed one, the resulting difference in the trends suggests that a substantial error exists in either the current data set or the version that was used prior to the mid- 2000s, and numerous studies that have relied on these observations should be reexamined to determine the sensitivity of their results to this change in the data set. Furthermore, a number of recent studies have investigated physical mechanisms for the observed expansion of the Antarctic sea ice cover. The results of this analysis raise the possibility that much of this expansion may be a spurious artifact of an error in the processing of the satellite observations. |
format |
Other/Unknown Material |
author |
Meier, W. N. Eisenman, I. Norris, J. N. |
author_facet |
Meier, W. N. Eisenman, I. Norris, J. N. |
author_sort |
Meier, W. N. |
title |
A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
title_short |
A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
title_full |
A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
title_fullStr |
A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Spurious Jump in the Satellite Record: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Expansion Been Overestimated? |
title_sort |
spurious jump in the satellite record: has antarctic sea ice expansion been overestimated? |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140017660 |
op_coverage |
Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available |
geographic |
Antarctic Arctic The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Arctic The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice |
op_source |
CASI |
op_relation |
Document ID: 20140017660 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140017660 |
op_rights |
Copyright, Public use permitted |
_version_ |
1766275855169880064 |