Variability in sea-ice coverage and ice-motion dynamics in the PAL LTER study region west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Author

Stammerjohn, Sharon ; Smith, Raymond ; Drinkwater, Mark R. ; Liu, Xiang

Author_Institution

Inst. for Comput. Earth Syst. Sci., Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

1998

fDate

6-10 Jul 1998

Firstpage

1434

Abstract

Sea-ice conditions and kinematics are studied in the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (PAL LTER) study region west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Remote sensing data from ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and Scatterometer (EScat) and from DMSP SSM/I, are used to study the influence of synoptic weather systems on sea-ice characteristics during July-August 1992. Weather records from Palmer Station (64° 46´S, 64° 03´W) on Anvers Island show large cyclonic storms moving through the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region on a quasi-weekly basis. Periods of strong north-westerly to north-easterly winds caused above normal air temperatures and in turn a rapid early retreat of the sea-ice cover in the WAP region. Ice motion derived from SSM/I images reveals the large-scale sea-ice kinematics during these periods together with statistical summaries of the impact of each storm upon regional opening/closing

Keywords

oceanographic regions; sea ice; AD 1992 07; AD 1992 08; Antarctic Peninsula; PAL LTER; Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research; Southern Ocean; air sea interaction; atmosphere ocean interaction; atmospheric forcing; ice-motion dynamics; kinematics; large cyclonic storms; sea ice motion; sea-ice coverage; storm; variability; wind stress; Antarctica; Kinematics; Large-scale systems; Radar measurements; Remote sensing; Sea ice; Synthetic aperture radar; Temperature; Tropical cyclones; Wind;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings, 1998. IGARSS '98. 1998 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4403-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.1998.691480

Filename

691480