Seasonal To Interannual Variability In Antarctic Sea-Ice Surface Melt

Satellite remote sensing time-series images are used to illustrate the spatial and temporal variability in Antarctic-wide seaice surface melting during the austral summer. Combinations of collocated data from the Active Microwave Instrument on board the ERS-1/2 spacecraft, RadarSat Synthetic Apertur...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mark R. Drinkwater, Xiang Liu
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
melt onset
melt pond
microwave
radar
radiometer
ERS
NSCAT
SSM/I
SAR
scatterometer
seasonal variability
Arctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Austral
Antarc*
Sea ice
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.42.7039
http://polar.jpl.nasa.gov/Publications/mrd_xiang_tgass99.pdf
Description
Summary:Satellite remote sensing time-series images are used to illustrate the spatial and temporal variability in Antarctic-wide seaice surface melting during the austral summer. Combinations of collocated data from the Active Microwave Instrument on board the ERS-1/2 spacecraft, RadarSat Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and SSM/I passive microwave radiometer are used in characterization of the effects of surface melting on measured values of the normalized backscatter cross-section and brightness temperature, respectively. An algorithm is developed from observed signatures to map interannual variations in summer season melt onset and the cumulative number of melt days throughout each austral summer from 1992- 1998. Results indicate that Antarctic sea-ice surface melting is sparse and relatively shortlived, in contrast to the protracted Arctic summer melt season. Regions consistently experiencing melt periods of 15 days or longer duration are focused around the Antarctic Peninsula, primarily in.

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