"U.S. releases unclassified spy images of Arctic ice"

An interesting story posted by Reuters The Globe and several other news sources.

To begin with I feel that it is important to note that these documents were declassified by the Obama administration in contradiction to the Bush administration who, for some undisclosed reason, chose to keep these images 'classified'.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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It is a good thing that the Obama administration decided to declassify these images as they are extremely helpful in studying planetary changes and determining appropriate actions to deal with the impacts of these changes n the built environment.

The Arctic images have a resolution of about 1 yard (1 meter), a vast improvement on previously available pictures of sea ice, said Thorsten Markus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"These are one-meter-resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," Markus said on Thursday. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One meter resolution is the dimension that's missing."

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The following links shows the severity of the retreating ice in the arctic, which highlights the importance of revealing this information.
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It seems obvious that the last administration was knowingly hiding information that contradicted their own political stance on the issue of global climate change's reality and severity.

I am happy to know that the current administration is not only not afraid of science but is doing what it can to aid scientific research.

Im taking these images with a grain of salt. Judging by the general trend in government that is for Global Warming Advocacy, its hard to believe George Bush, who spent half his presidency fighting climate battles, would have kept a piece of proof like this secret.

I'd say, if anything, these are fabricated images that nobody will disbelieve because we have been lead to think that bush classified them and put them under lock and key because they were so explosive.

BAH, no logic in this scenario. I smell fish

also, i think this topics being discussed already.

Trying to demonstrate a climate shift with a timespan of 12 months is ridiculous, even the biggest proponents of Global Warming would not suggest such a thing.

Show us the same photo every year for the last 30 years, then you might have something.

PS - I do believe that climate change is real, very real - this just isn't empirical evidence.

reply to post by Retseh


Some of the images present document changes of up to 9 years.

but still you make a good point 12 month comparisons are not proof positive, however i would not reject them outright.

more importantly these images are, as was stated in the op, of a resolution that will lead to better research that clarifies many unsolved issues with the topic or arctic melt.

reply to post by Animal


A year on year comparison for the last 20 years must be readily available from these spy photos - it's a pity that couldn't be provided.

I recall going summer skiing during August every year for 4 years on the Stubai glacier in Austria for 4 years during the early 90s, one year it would be snow/ice everywhere, the next year there would be none and the locals would be desperately making it using snow machines to keep their income stream flowing. It was just inconsistent.

I'd really like to see the year on year comparison of Barrow though.