The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations
Sea-ice concentrations derived from satellite microwave brightness temperatures are less accurate during summer. In the Arctic Ocean the lack of accuracy is primarily caused by melt ponds, but also by changes in the properties of snow and the sea-ice surface itself. We investigate the sensitivity of...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:cf45f81e6da24297883ebffc6edd85f3 2023-05-15T15:15:58+02:00 The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations S. Kern A. Rösel L. T. Pedersen N. Ivanova R. Saldo R. T. Tonboe 2016-09-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 https://doaj.org/article/cf45f81e6da24297883ebffc6edd85f3 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://www.the-cryosphere.net/10/2217/2016/tc-10-2217-2016.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/cf45f81e6da24297883ebffc6edd85f3 The Cryosphere, Vol 10, Pp 2217-2239 (2016) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2016 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 2022-12-31T05:08:34Z Sea-ice concentrations derived from satellite microwave brightness temperatures are less accurate during summer. In the Arctic Ocean the lack of accuracy is primarily caused by melt ponds, but also by changes in the properties of snow and the sea-ice surface itself. We investigate the sensitivity of eight sea-ice concentration retrieval algorithms to melt ponds by comparing sea-ice concentration with the melt-pond fraction. We derive gridded daily sea-ice concentrations from microwave brightness temperatures of summer 2009. We derive the daily fraction of melt ponds, open water between ice floes, and the ice-surface fraction from contemporary Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance data. We only use grid cells where the MODIS sea-ice concentration, which is the melt-pond fraction plus the ice-surface fraction, exceeds 90 %. For one group of algorithms, e.g., Bristol and Comiso bootstrap frequency mode (Bootstrap_f), sea-ice concentrations are linearly related to the MODIS melt-pond fraction quite clearly after June. For other algorithms, e.g., Near90GHz and Comiso bootstrap polarization mode (Bootstrap_p), this relationship is weaker and develops later in summer. We attribute the variation of the sensitivity to the melt-pond fraction across the algorithms to a different sensitivity of the brightness temperatures to snow-property variations. We find an underestimation of the sea-ice concentration by between 14 % (Bootstrap_f) and 26 % (Bootstrap_p) for 100 % sea ice with a melt-pond fraction of 40 %. The underestimation reduces to 0 % for a melt-pond fraction of 20 %. In presence of real open water between ice floes, the sea-ice concentration is overestimated by between 26 % (Bootstrap_f) and 14 % (Bootstrap_p) at 60 % sea-ice concentration and by 20 % across all algorithms at 80 % sea-ice concentration. None of the algorithms investigated performs best based on our investigation of data from summer 2009. We suggest that those algorithms which are more sensitive to melt ponds could be optimized ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Arctic Ocean The Cryosphere 10 5 2217 2239 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 S. Kern A. Rösel L. T. Pedersen N. Ivanova R. Saldo R. T. Tonboe The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
Sea-ice concentrations derived from satellite microwave brightness temperatures are less accurate during summer. In the Arctic Ocean the lack of accuracy is primarily caused by melt ponds, but also by changes in the properties of snow and the sea-ice surface itself. We investigate the sensitivity of eight sea-ice concentration retrieval algorithms to melt ponds by comparing sea-ice concentration with the melt-pond fraction. We derive gridded daily sea-ice concentrations from microwave brightness temperatures of summer 2009. We derive the daily fraction of melt ponds, open water between ice floes, and the ice-surface fraction from contemporary Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance data. We only use grid cells where the MODIS sea-ice concentration, which is the melt-pond fraction plus the ice-surface fraction, exceeds 90 %. For one group of algorithms, e.g., Bristol and Comiso bootstrap frequency mode (Bootstrap_f), sea-ice concentrations are linearly related to the MODIS melt-pond fraction quite clearly after June. For other algorithms, e.g., Near90GHz and Comiso bootstrap polarization mode (Bootstrap_p), this relationship is weaker and develops later in summer. We attribute the variation of the sensitivity to the melt-pond fraction across the algorithms to a different sensitivity of the brightness temperatures to snow-property variations. We find an underestimation of the sea-ice concentration by between 14 % (Bootstrap_f) and 26 % (Bootstrap_p) for 100 % sea ice with a melt-pond fraction of 40 %. The underestimation reduces to 0 % for a melt-pond fraction of 20 %. In presence of real open water between ice floes, the sea-ice concentration is overestimated by between 26 % (Bootstrap_f) and 14 % (Bootstrap_p) at 60 % sea-ice concentration and by 20 % across all algorithms at 80 % sea-ice concentration. None of the algorithms investigated performs best based on our investigation of data from summer 2009. We suggest that those algorithms which are more sensitive to melt ponds could be optimized ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
S. Kern A. Rösel L. T. Pedersen N. Ivanova R. Saldo R. T. Tonboe |
author_facet |
S. Kern A. Rösel L. T. Pedersen N. Ivanova R. Saldo R. T. Tonboe |
author_sort |
S. Kern |
title |
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
title_short |
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
title_full |
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
title_fullStr |
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
title_full_unstemmed |
The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
title_sort |
impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 https://doaj.org/article/cf45f81e6da24297883ebffc6edd85f3 |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Sea ice The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 10, Pp 2217-2239 (2016) |
op_relation |
https://www.the-cryosphere.net/10/2217/2016/tc-10-2217-2016.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/cf45f81e6da24297883ebffc6edd85f3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
2217 |
op_container_end_page |
2239 |
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1766346286375632896 |