A 20-year data set of surface longwave fluxes in the Arctic

• Main Author: Jennifer Francis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: 58 GEOSCIENCES; ALGORITHMS; ARCTIC OCEAN; BRIGHTNESS; DOWNWELLING; RADIATION FLUX; RADIATIONS; SATELLITES; SPATIAL RESOLUTION; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; National Snow and Ice Data Center; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/825099; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/825099; https://doi.org/10.2172/825099

Creation of 20-year data set of surface infrared fluxes from satellite measurements. A reliable estimate of the surface downwelling longwave radiation flux (DLF) is a glaring void in available forcing data sets for models of Arctic sea ice and ocean circulation. We have developed a new method to estimate the DLF from a combination of satellite sounder retrievals and brightness temperatures from the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS), which has flown on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites continuously since late 1979. The overarching goal of this project was to generate a 20-year data set of surface downwelling longwave flux measurements from TOVS data over the Arctic Ocean. Daily gridded fields of DLF were produced with a spatial resolution of (100 km){sup 2} north of 60{sup o}N for 22.5 years rather than only 20. Surface measurements from the field station at Barrow, AK--part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program --and from the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) were used to validate the satellite-derived fluxes and develop algorithm improvements for conditions that had resulted in systematic errors in early versions of the algorithm. The resulting data set has already been sent to two other investigators for incorporation into their research, and we will soon complete preparations to send the products to the National Snow and Ice Data Center and ARM data archive, where it can be disseminated to the scientific community.