ANALYSIS OF ANTARCTIC ICEBERG AND SEA ICE MELTING PATTERNS USING QUIKSCAT

QuikSCAT tracking of Antarctic icebergs is discussed, and iceberg movement trends are illustrated. Iceberg melting factors are explored and a backscatter time-series is presented. Interactions between iceberg and sea ice are examined using QuikSCAT data. To improve QuikSCAT sea ice mapping capabilit...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Keith M. Stuart, David G. Long
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.391.8140
http://www.mers.byu.edu/long/papers/conf/IGARSS2008Stuart.pdf
Description
Summary:QuikSCAT tracking of Antarctic icebergs is discussed, and iceberg movement trends are illustrated. Iceberg melting factors are explored and a backscatter time-series is presented. Interactions between iceberg and sea ice are examined using QuikSCAT data. To improve QuikSCAT sea ice mapping capability, a threshold algorithm to detect polynyas is developed. The 2006-2007 Antarctic ablation season is analyzed and correlations between polynya formation and sea ice melting are explored. General sea ice melting patterns are discussed, and statistics are derived from QuikSCAT’s life mission and compared with SSM/I measurements. This study finds that while average Antarctic sea ice coverage is increasing, minimum sea ice extent is decreasing. 1.