Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic
Uncertainty in snow properties impacts the accuracy of Arctic sea ice thickness estimates from radar altimetry. On first-year sea ice (FYI), spatiotemporal variations in snow properties can cause the Ku-band main radar scattering horizon to appear above the snow/sea ice interface. This can increase...
Published in: | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
2020
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Online Access: | http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/1/09000883.pdf https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9000883 |
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ftnerc:oai:nora.nerc.ac.uk:527641 2023-05-15T14:27:43+02:00 Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic Nandan, Vishnu Scharien, Randall K. Geldsetzer, Torsten Kwok, Ronald Yackel, John J. Mahmud, Mallik S. Rosel, Anja Tonboe, Rasmus Granskog, Mats Willatt, Rosemary Stroeve, Julienne Nomura, Daiki Frey, Markus 2020-02-17 text http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/1/09000883.pdf https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9000883 en eng Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/1/09000883.pdf Nandan, Vishnu; Scharien, Randall K.; Geldsetzer, Torsten; Kwok, Ronald; Yackel, John J.; Mahmud, Mallik S.; Rosel, Anja; Tonboe, Rasmus; Granskog, Mats; Willatt, Rosemary; Stroeve, Julienne; Nomura, Daiki; Frey, Markus orcid:0000-0003-0535-0416 . 2020 Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 13. 1082-1096. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432 <https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432> cc_by_4 CC-BY Publication - Article PeerReviewed 2020 ftnerc https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432 2023-02-04T19:50:39Z Uncertainty in snow properties impacts the accuracy of Arctic sea ice thickness estimates from radar altimetry. On first-year sea ice (FYI), spatiotemporal variations in snow properties can cause the Ku-band main radar scattering horizon to appear above the snow/sea ice interface. This can increase the estimated sea ice freeboard by several centimeters, leading to FYI thickness overestimations. This article examines the expected changes in Ku-band main scattering horizon and its impact on FYI thickness estimates, with variations in snow temperature, salinity, and density derived from ten naturally occurring Arctic FYI Cases encompassing saline/nonsaline, warm/cold, simple/complexly layered snow (4–45 cm) overlying FYI (48–170 cm). Using a semi-empirical modeling approach, snow properties from these Cases are used to derive layer-wise brine volume and dielectric constant estimates, to simulate the Ku-band main scattering horizon and delays in radar propagation speed. Differences between modeled and observed FYI thickness are calculated to assess sources of error. Under both cold and warm conditions, saline snow covers are shown to shift the main scattering horizon above from the snow/sea ice interface, causing thickness retrieval errors. Overestimates in FYI thicknesses of up to 65% are found for warm, saline snow overlaying thin sea ice. Our simulations exhibited a distinct shift in the main scattering horizon when the snow layer densities became greater than 440 kg/m 3 , especially under warmer snow conditions. Our simulations suggest a mean Ku-band propagation delay for snow of 39%, which is higher than 25%, suggested in previous studies. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Sea ice Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive Arctic IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 13 1082 1096 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftnerc |
language |
English |
description |
Uncertainty in snow properties impacts the accuracy of Arctic sea ice thickness estimates from radar altimetry. On first-year sea ice (FYI), spatiotemporal variations in snow properties can cause the Ku-band main radar scattering horizon to appear above the snow/sea ice interface. This can increase the estimated sea ice freeboard by several centimeters, leading to FYI thickness overestimations. This article examines the expected changes in Ku-band main scattering horizon and its impact on FYI thickness estimates, with variations in snow temperature, salinity, and density derived from ten naturally occurring Arctic FYI Cases encompassing saline/nonsaline, warm/cold, simple/complexly layered snow (4–45 cm) overlying FYI (48–170 cm). Using a semi-empirical modeling approach, snow properties from these Cases are used to derive layer-wise brine volume and dielectric constant estimates, to simulate the Ku-band main scattering horizon and delays in radar propagation speed. Differences between modeled and observed FYI thickness are calculated to assess sources of error. Under both cold and warm conditions, saline snow covers are shown to shift the main scattering horizon above from the snow/sea ice interface, causing thickness retrieval errors. Overestimates in FYI thicknesses of up to 65% are found for warm, saline snow overlaying thin sea ice. Our simulations exhibited a distinct shift in the main scattering horizon when the snow layer densities became greater than 440 kg/m 3 , especially under warmer snow conditions. Our simulations suggest a mean Ku-band propagation delay for snow of 39%, which is higher than 25%, suggested in previous studies. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Nandan, Vishnu Scharien, Randall K. Geldsetzer, Torsten Kwok, Ronald Yackel, John J. Mahmud, Mallik S. Rosel, Anja Tonboe, Rasmus Granskog, Mats Willatt, Rosemary Stroeve, Julienne Nomura, Daiki Frey, Markus |
spellingShingle |
Nandan, Vishnu Scharien, Randall K. Geldsetzer, Torsten Kwok, Ronald Yackel, John J. Mahmud, Mallik S. Rosel, Anja Tonboe, Rasmus Granskog, Mats Willatt, Rosemary Stroeve, Julienne Nomura, Daiki Frey, Markus Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
author_facet |
Nandan, Vishnu Scharien, Randall K. Geldsetzer, Torsten Kwok, Ronald Yackel, John J. Mahmud, Mallik S. Rosel, Anja Tonboe, Rasmus Granskog, Mats Willatt, Rosemary Stroeve, Julienne Nomura, Daiki Frey, Markus |
author_sort |
Nandan, Vishnu |
title |
Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
title_short |
Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
title_full |
Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
title_fullStr |
Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic |
title_sort |
snow property controls on modeled ku-band altimeter estimates of first-year sea ice thickness: case studies from the canadian and norwegian arctic |
publisher |
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/1/09000883.pdf https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9000883 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Sea ice |
op_relation |
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527641/1/09000883.pdf Nandan, Vishnu; Scharien, Randall K.; Geldsetzer, Torsten; Kwok, Ronald; Yackel, John J.; Mahmud, Mallik S.; Rosel, Anja; Tonboe, Rasmus; Granskog, Mats; Willatt, Rosemary; Stroeve, Julienne; Nomura, Daiki; Frey, Markus orcid:0000-0003-0535-0416 . 2020 Snow Property Controls on Modeled Ku-Band Altimeter Estimates of First-Year Sea Ice Thickness: Case Studies From the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 13. 1082-1096. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432 <https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432> |
op_rights |
cc_by_4 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2966432 |
container_title |
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
13 |
container_start_page |
1082 |
op_container_end_page |
1096 |
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1766301588017643520 |