Antarctic Peninsula melt season durations based on level 1 ASCAT scatterometer data, 2017-2020

• Main Authors: Bevan, Suzanne, Luckman, Adrian
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: UK Polar Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council, UK Research & Innovation 2020
• Subjects: "EARTH SCIENCE","CRYOSPHERE","GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS","GLACIER MASS BALANCE/ICE SHEET MASS BALANCE"; "EARTH SCIENCE","CRYOSPHERE","SNOW/ICE","ICE GROWTH/MELT"; Antarctic Peninsula; Ice shelf melt duration; Scatterometer; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Austral; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/cfa4cc5d-3ea9-4c3c-8d6b-6b92a81bb2af; https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01318

Three datasets of melt season duration in days covering the Antarctic Peninsula for the austral yeas of 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. The datasets are based on ASCAT GDS Level 1 Sigma0 Swath Grid data from the EUMETSAT archive (archive.eumetsat.int/usc/) and extend an earlier time series based on enhanced QuikSCAT and ASCAT data (doi:10.5285/e3616d28-759e-4cca-8fae-fe398f9552ba). The data are supplied as GeoTIFFs. Funding was provided from the NERC grant NE/L005409/1. : ASCAT GDS Level 1 Sigma0 Swath Grid data were downloaded from the EUMETSAT archive (archive.eumetsat.int/usc/). Daily composites were created by taking the minimum of the mid-beam data of all overpasses by the METOPA and METOPB satellites. If the backscatter value was more than 2.7 dB below the mean of the previous winter (June, July, August) then liquid water was assumed to be present. Melt days were summed over the austral year August to July. : Spatial Coverage: The data cover the Antarctic Peninsula and are in Polar Stereographic projection EPSG:3031. Resolution: The GeoTIFFs have a pixel size of 5 km but the underlying data have a spatial resolution of 15-30 km. : Scatterometer data were missing between 12/12/2017 and 02/01/2018, and between 17/12/2018 and 15/01/2019. The data for 2019/2020 only go to 17/04/2020. Therefore there is the possibility that melt durations are underestimated. However, the affect of the 2017, 2018 and 2019 missing data is minimal as most melt takes place later in the summer.