INFLUENCE IF ATMOSPHERIC MOISTURE TRANSPORT ON ICE COVERAGE IN POLAR REGIONS

Change in Earth's polar ice sheets is potentially a major source of sea level variability, dramatically affecting global water cycle. One important component in the polar region water balance is the atmospheric moisture transported from lower latitude, which is traditionally estimated from rawi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wenqing Tang, W. Timothy Liu
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Spanish
Published: Universidad de Concepción 2004
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/d09856ff4c94421394630a42ba7ff6f4
Description
Summary:Change in Earth's polar ice sheets is potentially a major source of sea level variability, dramatically affecting global water cycle. One important component in the polar region water balance is the atmospheric moisture transported from lower latitude, which is traditionally estimated from rawinsonde measurements. A method has been developed to estimate moisture transport integrated over the depth of the atmosphere (IMT) by combining the observations by spacebased scatterometers and microwave radiometers. The gridded IMT fields over global oceans have been produced for the period from August 1999 to December 2003, using data from QuikSCAT and the Special Sensor Microwave / Imager (SSM/I). The temporal and geographical variation of IMT into Greenland and Antarctic were characterized and related to sea ice distribution