Influence of melt ponds on microwave sensors´ sea ice concentration retrieval algorithms

Author

Rösel, Anja ; Kaleschke, Lars

Author_Institution

Inst. of Oceanogr., Univ. of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

fYear

2012

fDate

22-27 July 2012

Firstpage

3261

Lastpage

3264

Abstract

The introduced MODIS melt pond fractions and it´s corresponding sea ice concentration data set are valuable sources for multiple applications in Climate sciences. Knowledge about the occurrence of melt ponds is essential to properly document the energy balance on the sea ice surface during summer. Additionally, melt pond fractions can be used to quantify the uncertainties in sea ice concentration data derived from passive microwave imagery. As shown in Figure 1, the MODIS melt pond fractions can be used to estimate the influence of melt ponds on the sea ice concentration determination from microwave sensors like AMSR-E. In this example, all AMSR-E algorithms are clearly underestimating MODIS sea ice concentration by around 20-30%. In the final paper a detailed analysis of the uncertainties caused by melt ponds and an assessment of the different sea ice concentration retrieval methods will be given.

Keywords

data acquisition; melting; microwave measurement; oceanographic techniques; radiometry; remote sensing; sea ice; AMSR-E algorithm; MODIS melt pond fraction; climate science; energy balance; melt pond occurrence; microwave sensor sea ice concentration retrieval algorithm; passive microwave imagery; sea ice concentration data set; sea ice concentration determination; sea ice surface; uncertainty analysis; MODIS; Microwave FET integrated circuits; Microwave imaging; Microwave integrated circuits; Ocean temperature; Sea ice; Sea surface;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2012 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Munich

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1160-1

Electronic_ISBN

2153-6996

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6350608

Filename

6350608