INTEGRATED RETRIEVAL OF SURFACE AND ATMOSPHERIC PARAMETERS OVER THE ARCTIC FROM AMSR-E SATELLITE MICROWAVE RADIOMETER DATA USING INVERSE METHODS

• Main Authors: C. Melsheimer, G. Heygster, L. Toudal Pedersen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.668.6486; http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/iuppage/psa/documents/melsheimer08a.pdf

We present a method for the retrieval of atmospheric and surface parameters (namely, surface wind speed, total water vapor, cloud liquid water, surface temperature, ice concen-tration, multiyear ice fraction) over the Arctic Ocean from brightness temperature measurements by the spaceborne mi-crowave radiometer AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scan-ning Radiometer for EOS) on the satellite Aqua. We use an inverse method, with a forward model based on a fast radiative transfer for AMSR-E over open ocean which we have extended by including the possibility of ice-covered or partly ice-covered sea, using new data on sea ice emissivity at AMSR-E frequencies. The method performs reasonably well and can even retrieve cloud liquid water over ice, and ice concentration in the marginal ice zone in cloudy and humid conditions. Index Terms — Microwave radiometry, polar regions, sea ice, cloud liquid water 1.