| Summary: | Monthly grids of on-sea ice snow depths are derived through the combination of gridded sea ice surface snow accumulation rates and sea ice surface freeze/melt dates in a model. Localized values of sea ice surface snow accumulation rates are created using on-sea ice and coastal based in-situ measurements of snow depth. These values are interpolated to a grid using estimates of net precipitation, derived from TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) satellite water vapor and winds retrievals [Groves and Francis, 2002] as a background field. A model is then used to accumulate snow at each grid point based upon whether ice is present and its surface is not melting. Ice surface melt/freeze date data is derived from Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) - Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) passive microwave satellites and is available with approx. one to two day resolution [Markus et al, 2009]. Monthly gridded model output is representative of mid-month snow depths. Net precipitation, ice surface freeze/melt products and model output are all at 25 km grid spacing, using the northern hemispheric Equal-Area Scalable Earth projection [see: http://nsidc.org/data/ease/]. Model output includes the Arctic Ocean and its peripheral seas including the Bering Sea, Okhotsk Sea, Canadian Archipelago and Hudson Bay. Primary on-ice snow depths are from measurements taken at the Soviet North Pole drifting stations, described by Warren et al. [1999]. Coastal snow depth measurements are from a variety of international sources including the Alaska Climate Research Center, National Snow and Ice Data Center, National Climatic Data Center, Environment Canada and the Norwegian Meteorological Service. Data compilation, interpolation and snow-deposition modeling procedures are described in detail in Harbeck and Eicken (in prep.). References: - Groves, D. G., and J. A. Francis, Moisture budget of the Arctic atmosphere from TOVS satellite data, J. Geophys. Res., 107(D19), 4391, doi:10.1029/2001JD001191, 2002. - Harbeck, J. P. and Eicken, H. (in prep.), Effects of a changing Arctic sea ice cover upon on-ice snow depths, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks press, Thesis - Markus, T., J. C. Stroeve, and J. Miller (2009), Recent changes in Arctic sea ice melt onset, freezeup, and melt season length, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C12, doi:10.1029/2009JC005436. - Warren, S. G., Rigor, I.G., Untersteiner, N., Radionov, V.F., Bryazgin, N. N., Aleksandrov, Y. I., and Colony, R. (1999), Snow Depth on Arctic Sea Ice, J. Climate, 14, 1814 - 1829.*****These data were compiled in conjunction with the Sunlight and the Arctic atmosphere-ice-ocean system (Synthesis of Arctic System Science, SASS) project.*****
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