To be submitted to JGR-Oceans Studies of Antarctic Sea Ice Concentrations from Satellite Data and their Applications

• Main Authors: Josefino C. Comiso, Konrad Steffen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amundsen Sea; Antarctic; Ross Sea; The Antarctic; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; ice pack; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.473.2269; http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20010027899.pdf

Large changes in the sea ice cover have been observed recently. Because of the relevance of such changes to climate change studies it is important that key ice concentration data sets used for evaluating such changes are interpreted properly. High and medium resolution visible and infrared satellite data are used in conjunction with passive microwave data to study the true characteristics of the Antarctic sea ice cover, assess errors in currently available ice concentration products, and evaluate the applications and limitations of the latter in polar process studies. Cloud-free high resolution data provide valuable information about the natural distribution, stage of formation, and composition of the ice cover that enables interpretation of the large spatial and temporal variability of the microwave emissivity of Antarctic sea ice. Comparative analyses of co-registered visible, infrared and microwave data were used to evaluate ice concentrations derived from standard ice algorithms (i.e., Bootstrap and Team) and investigate the 10 to 35 % difference in derived values from large areas within the ice pack, especially in the Weddell Sea, Amundsen Sea, and Ross Sea regions. Landsat and OLS data showapredominanceof thick consolidatedice in theseareasandshowgoodagreementwith