(Table 1) Mean temperatures in january and july, and total annual snowfall at Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, Canada

• Main Authors: Kang, Kyung-Kuk, Duguay, Claude R, Howell, Stephen E L, Derksen, Chris, Kelly, Richard E J
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2010
• Subjects: Accumulation of snow; Area/locality; DATE/TIME; Deline_MS; Event label; Hay_River_MS; International Polar Year (2007-2008); IPY; Latitude of event; Longitude of event; Northwest Territories; Canada; Temperature; coldest month; warmest month; Weather station/meteorological observation; WST; Yellowknife_MS; Great Slave Lake; Great Bear Lake; International Polar Year
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.811808; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.811808

The sensitivity of brightness temperature (T(B)) at 6.9, 10.7, and 18.7 GHz from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) observations is investigated over five winter seasons (2002-2007) on Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. The T(B) measurements are compared to ice thicknesses obtained with a previously validated thermodynamic lake ice model. Lake ice thickness is found to explain much of the increase of T(B) at 10.7 and 18.7 GHz. T(B) acquired at 18.7 GHz (V-pol) and 10.7 GHz (H-pol) shows the strongest relation with simulated lake ice thickness over the period of study (R**2 > 0.90). A comparison of the seasonal evolution of T(B) for a cold winter (2003-2004) and a warm winter (2005-2006) reveals that the relationship between T(B) and ice growth is stronger in the cold winter (2003-2004). Overall, this letter shows the high sensitivity of T(B) to ice growth and, thus, the potential of AMSR-E mid-frequency channels to estimate ice thickness on large northern lakes.