# Is this giant circular snow-free area in Asia for real? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003 "2008-01-02T17:04:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/1 "2008-01-02T17:04:37Z")
Someone on a weather forum I read posted these images of snow-cover data: [http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.2.jpg](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.2.jpg) [http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.thumb.jpg](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.thumb.jpg) [http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.3.jpg](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.3.jpg) What’s up with that huge almost-perfectly circular snow-free area? As far as I can make out, it is centered somewhere near the town of Tyumen. Is it real or an artifact? I would have thought that missing data would show up in square or rectangular areas, not circles. Did someone set off a big bomb? Leave the oven on? Go really overboard on road salt? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/2 "2008-01-02T17:15:24Z")
That looks to be ~700 miles across. Way too big to be due to human activity, I should think. I vote “photographic artifact.” ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/3 "2008-01-02T17:26:04Z")
It’s in the area of the Kulunda Steppe…Maybe that has something to do with it? 😕 I’m going with human/computer artifact, as it is too perfect a circle- and you would have to believe that there was no snow in Siberia! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/4 "2008-01-02T17:37:03Z")
Unreported asteroid impact. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/5 "2008-01-02T18:21:13Z")
No! No! The Russians got that whole melt-the-snow-with-a-space-mirror thing working! I suspect it’s an area where the satellite never passes. Or a Sensitive Russion Installation subject to censorship? ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/6 "2008-01-02T19:40:59Z")
It appears to be mostly in [Kazakhstan](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=tyumen&ie=UTF8&ll=48.632909,75.234375&spn=29.233462,88.59375&t=h&z=4&om=1). Perhaps it’s the result of mass burnings of copies of the Borat movie? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/7 "2008-01-02T20:16:04Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] I would have thought that missing data would show up in square or rectangular areas, not circles. [/QUOTE] It all depends on how the data is processed and combined. My WAG is, the circle corresponds to the coverage area from the satellite at the instant when there was data corruption. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/8 "2008-01-02T20:47:19Z")
I can’t even see the circle you are referring to. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/9 "2008-01-02T20:52:45Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I can’t even see the circle you are referring to. 😕 [/QUOTE] Yeah. What circle? ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/10 "2008-01-02T20:54:20Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I can’t even see the circle you are referring to. 😕 [/QUOTE] Because it’s not there. This was all just a big mind exper You can see it if you look at the 30 day history, and it may still be on the one day history. The links are to the current image. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/11 "2008-01-02T20:59:29Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I can’t even see the circle you are referring to. 😕 [/QUOTE] Well, whadda ya know. It’s gone. There is no problem. There never was a problem. ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/12 "2008-01-02T21:05:53Z")
[HERE](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2372/2158886505_f9d6dd0722_o.jpg)’s the hole. As to what it is? No idea. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/13 "2008-01-02T21:13:36Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] There is no problem. There never was a problem. [/QUOTE] We have always been at war with west Asia. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/14 "2008-01-02T21:15:03Z")
Those crop-circle folks get bored in the winter time. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/15 "2008-01-02T21:24:03Z")
I remember a few years ago a similar “hole” in satellite data, over the north pole, being used to justify some crackpot “hollow earth” conspiracy theory. To my mind, the hole in the snow looked sort of octagonal. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/16 "2008-01-02T21:44:00Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] To my mind, the hole in the snow looked sort of octagonal. [/QUOTE] That makes perfect sense, because the stormclouds around _Saturn’s_ pole form a [**Hex** agon!](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-034) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/17 "2008-01-02T22:00:07Z")
[QUOTE=brewha] [HERE](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2372/2158886505_f9d6dd0722_o.jpg)’s the hole. As to what it is? No idea. [/QUOTE] And if you look at the (now updated) images in my OP, you can see that the hole is still there, only smaller and no longer circular. Odd. **jjimm** , I remember seeing those images, but in that case the missing data was around the pole as the satellite orbit didn’t allow coverage above a certain latitude. Whereas this hole was in the middle of an area with perfectly good coverage… ---
**Author:** ![adirondack\_mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@adirondack\_mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adirondack_mike)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-giant-circular-snow-free-area-in-asia-for-real/432003/18 "2008-01-03T02:25:33Z")
the hole appears to be an artifact of the data set. [NOAA](http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SNOW/) data using satellite imagery does not show the circles. There are two different data sets that are used to create the images - snow cover and sea ice. The sea ice imagery comes from from NOAA data. The snow cover maps are not. My guess, because I cannot find it on the Cryoshpere Today site, is that the CT data are gathered from ground stations and interpolated for the coverage area. When a datum is not available the value is filled in as zero snow cover and the mathematical interpolation creates the holes. The coverage maps from NOAA, which uses satellite and ground data, minimizes the data gaps or uses a different mathematical interpolation to cover the missing data.