Um...Maybe not so much. From Bloomberg:
Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to
Faulty Sensor
By Alex Morales
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. “Although we believe that data prior to
early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
Yup...Al Gore's right. Case closed. It's real. No reason to look behind the curtain.
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