REALITY CHECK NEEDED - Arctic Ice Cap - Computer Imaging Problem?

[hatrack]

I'm looking at enormous cracks running from just north of Alaska to the Pole. At this scale these would be hundreds of miles long. Is this an artifact of satellite imaging or is this some sort of rapid breakup?

These cracks were not present in yesterday's images, or in any I've seen this summer.

Is there anyone here who works with imaging systems? Totally flummoxed here.

[Up2Late]

1. Looks like gaps in the satellite's scan area, happens all the time...

...near the poles do to the nature of most satellite orbits.

Check yesterday's image, I'll look to see what I can find from a few other satellites.

[jpak]

2. Yup

n/t

[hatrack]

3. Good thing, too - that was rather jaw-dropping for a moment!

And on viewing the 30-day loop, a similarly big hole opens up in mid-July.

Thanks!

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.0.html

[Up2Late]

4. Here are some links to real time (RAW) images from NASA's MODIS...

... satilites.

The images are too big (or the links too long, I'm not sure) to post them directly here, so go to this link:

<http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/2006223/> and look for these images:

Terra
2006/223
08/11/06
08:50 UTC
and look like this >>>

Terra
2006/223
08/11/06
08:55 UTC


Terra
2006/223
08/11/06
07:10 UTC


After you click on these images, click on the thumbnails that are labled "Bands 3-6-7," the bright red is sea-ice and snow. If you click on the 1km or 500m links you can see that most of the ice looks like a giant slushy. Very scary.

Note: These are RAW images, meaning they haven't been procesed yet to remove mis-matched scan lines and noise.

Here's a link to some processed images from July 25,2006 and April 2004: <http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?search=Beaufort+Sea+>