Except even with that factored in there is still significant long term decreases in arctic sea ice coverage: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Also apparently there a far shorter outage of the sensor than you stated. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ "As some of our readers have already noticed, there was a significant problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February. 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." and further on: "On February 16, 2009, as emails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problemâsea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean. The problem stemmed from a failure of the sea ice algorithm caused by degradation of one of the DMSP F15 sensor channels.. Upon further investigation, we found that data quality had begun to degrade over the month preceding the catastrophic failure. As a result, our processes underestimated total sea ice extent for the affected period. Based on comparisons with sea ice extent derived from the NASA Earth Observing System Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (EOS AMSR-E) sensor, this underestimation grew from a negligible amount in early January to about 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February (Figure 2). While dramatic, the underestimated values were not outside of expected variability until Monday, February 16. Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check in the coming days." So the problem lies in the very short term. Because of that it the recent historical data over the last several years are still valid and still present a concern over the shrinking arctic ice cap. >You, uh, see ... it's, uh, well, it's like this: we made a little boo-boo. > >More of a technical glitch really and uh ... > >--- >As some of our readers have already noticed, there was a significant >problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem >arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily >sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that >starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a >slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The >underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers >(193,000 square miles) by mid-February. 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. > >http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ >--- > >Cause ... so, ok ... it turns out this prediction last May was WAY off: >http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/050508.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:289244 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
