Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability
We estimate the uncertainty of satellite-retrieved Arctic sea-ice thickness, sea-ice volume, and their trends stemming from the lack of reliable snow-thickness observations. To do so, we simulate a Cryosat2-type ice-thickness retrieval in an ocean-model simulation forced by atmospheric reanalysis, p...
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ftpubman:oai:pure.mpg.de:item_2642310 2023-08-20T04:03:53+02:00 Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability Bunzel, F. Notz, D. Pedersen, L. 2018-11 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-8060-0 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-9E76-8 eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1029/2018GL078867 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-8060-0 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-9E76-8 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Geophysical Research Letters info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2018 ftpubman https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078867 2023-08-01T23:44:50Z We estimate the uncertainty of satellite-retrieved Arctic sea-ice thickness, sea-ice volume, and their trends stemming from the lack of reliable snow-thickness observations. To do so, we simulate a Cryosat2-type ice-thickness retrieval in an ocean-model simulation forced by atmospheric reanalysis, pretending that only freeboard is known as model output. We then convert freeboard to sea-ice thickness using different snow climatologies and compare the resulting sea-ice thickness retrievals to each other and to the real sea-ice thickness of the reanalysis-forced simulation. We find that different snow climatologies cause significant differences in the obtained ice thickness and ice volume. In addition, we show that Arctic ice-volume trends derived from ice-thickness retrievals using any snow-depth climatology are highly unreliable because the estimated trend in ice volume can strongly be influenced by the neglected interannual variability in snow volume. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Sea ice Max Planck Society: MPG.PuRe Arctic Geophysical Research Letters 45 21 11,751 11,759 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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Max Planck Society: MPG.PuRe |
op_collection_id |
ftpubman |
language |
English |
description |
We estimate the uncertainty of satellite-retrieved Arctic sea-ice thickness, sea-ice volume, and their trends stemming from the lack of reliable snow-thickness observations. To do so, we simulate a Cryosat2-type ice-thickness retrieval in an ocean-model simulation forced by atmospheric reanalysis, pretending that only freeboard is known as model output. We then convert freeboard to sea-ice thickness using different snow climatologies and compare the resulting sea-ice thickness retrievals to each other and to the real sea-ice thickness of the reanalysis-forced simulation. We find that different snow climatologies cause significant differences in the obtained ice thickness and ice volume. In addition, we show that Arctic ice-volume trends derived from ice-thickness retrievals using any snow-depth climatology are highly unreliable because the estimated trend in ice volume can strongly be influenced by the neglected interannual variability in snow volume. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bunzel, F. Notz, D. Pedersen, L. |
spellingShingle |
Bunzel, F. Notz, D. Pedersen, L. Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
author_facet |
Bunzel, F. Notz, D. Pedersen, L. |
author_sort |
Bunzel, F. |
title |
Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
title_short |
Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
title_full |
Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
title_fullStr |
Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
title_full_unstemmed |
Retrievals of Arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
title_sort |
retrievals of arctic sea-ice volume and its trend significantly affected by interannual snow variability |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-8060-0 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-9E76-8 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Sea ice |
op_source |
Geophysical Research Letters |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1029/2018GL078867 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-8060-0 http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0002-9E76-8 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078867 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
45 |
container_issue |
21 |
container_start_page |
11,751 |
op_container_end_page |
11,759 |
_version_ |
1774714309469798400 |