A scatterometer record of sea ice extents and backscatter: 1992-2016

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Belmonte, Maria, Otosaka, Ines, Stoffelen, Ad, Verhoef, Anton
• Other Authors: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Germany), European Space Agency
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2018
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/172627; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2941-2018; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100002765; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000844

13 pages, 13 figures, data availability http://projects.knmi.nl/scatterometer/ice_extents/ This paper presents the first long-term climate data record of sea ice extents and backscatter derived from intercalibrated satellite scatterometer missions (ERS, QuikSCAT and ASCAT) extending from 1992 to the present date (Verhoef et al., 2018). This record provides a valuable independent account of the evolution of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents, one that is in excellent agreement with the passive microwave records during the fall and winter months but shows higher sensitivity to lower concentration and melting sea ice during the spring and summer months. The scatterometer record also provides a depiction of sea ice backscatter at C- and Ku-bands, allowing the separation of seasonal and perennial sea ice in the Arctic and further differentiation between second-year (SY) and older multiyear (MY) ice classes, revealing the emergence of SY ice as the dominant perennial ice type after the historical sea ice loss in 2007 and bearing new evidence on the loss of multiyear ice in the Arctic over the last 25 years. The relative good agreement between the backscatter-based sea ice (FY, SY and older MY) classes and the ice thickness record from Cryosat suggests its applicability as a reliable proxy in the historical reconstruction of sea ice thickness in the Arctic The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the ESA Scirocco project, the EUMETSAT OSI SAF for the provision of backscatter data, our KNMI colleague Jeroen Verspeek for his insights, and the NASA and NSIDC public data archives as essential towards the completion of this activity. Processing of the AWI CryoSat-2 (PARAMETER) ice thickness is funded by the German Ministry of Economics Affairs and Energy (grant 50EE1008) and data obtained from http://www.meereisportal.de (grant REKLIM-2013-04) Peer Reviewed