Our beloved ice pack

People who have kids probably know that feeling when their kid has a fever and they watch him/her for a while at night to see how he/she's doing. That's what I felt when dabize sent me his latest declouding art, a composite image from the LANCE-MODIS satellite images (click for a larger version):

Dabize explains:

This is essentially a photomontage of Days 228-232 for tiles r03c03,r04c04,r03c04,r04c03 (terra, 1km)

I blurred the cloud tops of any area that had simply NO clear weather over the past 5 days.

This had the effect of making some areas of cloud look a bit like ice, but I think the difference is clear in most cases.

Our kid, 2012, looks sick at the edges, but well enough in the centre to carry it through the rest of the melting season and spare some shamelessly goalpost shifting people the embarrasment of having to eat defrosted crow. I don't know about the rest of the family yet. 2012 wil probably infect its sibling years. We'll see as soon as 2013 develops its first fever.

Comments

[dabize]

Some of that sickness at the edges is Photoshop cloning tool artifact, for which I apologize.

To grind Neven's metaphor into the ground, the sickness looks like a nasty genetic disease that shows increasing severity with successive generations ("anticipation" in geneticist jargon). Think Huntington's Disease.

I therefore fear that the offspring may not make it through the summer pretty soon........

[Chris Alemany]

I'm sorry I've been trying to figure it out for a while now but I have yet to figure out what website these near-real time MODIS images are obtained from. I've been through the MODIS site a million times and have never found these 'tiles' or anything approaching what is here.

Could someone provide a direct link to where these are downloaded? Thank you so much

Chris

[Neven]

Welcome, another Chris. Is this what you mean?

[Twemoran]

Like cheese, wine and intellect, ice improves with age. Children having children is never a happy scenario and I fear our child will give birth to the next without the necessary maturity that MYI would bring.
The feverish rapture of rapid freezing followed closely be even more rapid melt is a childish, self destructive (shelf destructive:) pattern followed by feckless youth, and only an aged, hand, seasoned by the passage of many seasons can guide us back from the impetuosity of FYI.

Terry - Grey Power Party Rules (Drools:)

[Kevin McKinney]

Yeah, we might as well laugh; crying hasn't done much good so far!

[dabize]

I won't groan for "shelf destructive" until you give me one for Ob'vious
(pouts)

The whole point about the children of this icepack is that they are unlikely to beget children of their own who get very far in life. The Cycle of Arctic Poverty will be renewed.

They should be safe from Alzheimer's Disease, though......that's something.

[Neven]

I won't groan for "shelf destructive"

Last year I had a blog post called You do it to your shelf. :-P

[Steve C]

It will take many months for the child to recuperate from the recent bout of Typhoon Fever.

[dabize]

Shelf-destructive?

That sounds as if it would be borderline illegal in our prissy society here - an autoenthalpic act

[Apocalypse4Real]

dabize, great work, and Neven thanks for its posting.

Depending on weather and currents we may still have alot of ice melt or grind away.

Humor aside - it is sobering, especially considering the unknown impacts of potential Arctic heating on future climate as this becomes the "norm" in July, not August, or what used to be September....you get my drift.

A4R

[Peter Ellis]

Chris: here
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic

Click through on the main picture to get individual tiles. Today's picture is usually incomplete (as soon as they finish one mosaic, they start assembling the next)