Sea Ice Microwave Emission Process Simulations

Although the sea ice microwave emissivity (e) is well defined in terms brightness temperature (T_b) and integrated physical temperature (T_eff) it is very difficult to derive in practice and its link to physical processes in the natural snow and sea ice cover is not understood in detail. Here the microwave emission processes from sea ice are simulated using a 1D-thermodynamic sea ice model, with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) reanalysis input, and a microwave emission model. The emission model is a sea ice version of the Microwave Emission Model for Layered Snow-packs (MEMLS). Differences between the emissivity derived from surface temperature measurements (the effective emissivity) and emissivity derived from the integrated physical temperature is discussed. Correlation between different channels between 18 and 183 GHz is computed and it is found that the spectral gradient ratio, GR_18/36, is related to the emissivity at 50GHz, e_50v.