Version 2 of the EUMETSAT OSI SAF and ESA CCI sea-ice concentration climate data records

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Lavergne, Thomas, Gabarró, Carolina, Pedersen, Leif Toudal
• Other Authors: European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, European Space Agency
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2019
• Subjects: Pedersen; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/177554; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-49-2019; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000844; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100010560

Lavergne, Thomas . et al.-- 30 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables.-- Data availability. The three SIC CDRs presented in this study are publicly available and can be accessed by following the DOIs https://doi.org/10.15770/EUM_SAF_OSI_0008 (Toudal Pedersen et al., 2017a), https://doi.org/10.5285/f17f146a31b14dfd960cde0874236ee5 (Toudal Pedersen et al., 2017b), and https://doi.org/10.5285/5f75fcb0c58740d99b07953797bc041e (Toudal Pedersen et al., 2017c); see also Table 1 We introduce the OSI-450, the SICCI-25km and the SICCI-50km climate data records of gridded global sea-ice concentration. These three records are derived from passive microwave satellite data and offer three distinct advantages compared to existing records: First, all three records provide quantitative information on uncertainty and possibly applied filtering at every grid point and every time step. Second, they are based on dynamic tie points, which capture the time evolution of surface characteristics of the ice cover and accommodate potential calibration differences between satellite missions. Third, they are produced in the context of sustained services offering committed extension, documentation, traceability, and user support. The three records differ in the underlying satellite data (SMMR & SSM/I & SSMIS or AMSR-E & AMSR2), in the imaging frequency channels (37GHz and either 6 or 19GHz), in their horizontal resolution (25 or 50km), and in the time period they cover. We introduce the underlying algorithms and provide an evaluation. We find that all three records compare well with independent estimates of sea-ice concentration both in regions with very high sea-ice concentration and in regions with very low sea-ice concentration. We hence trust that these records will prove helpful for a better understanding of the evolution of the Earth's sea-ice cover This study and the development of the three new SIC CDRs were funded by EUMETSAT (through the 2nd Continuous Developments and Operation Phase of OSI SAF) and ESA (through the Climate ...