EOF analysis of three records of sea-ice concentration spanning the last 30 years

Several continuous observational datasets of Artic sea-ice concentration are currently available that cover the period since the advent of routine satellite observations. We report on a comparison of three sea-ice concentration datasets. These are the National Ice Center charts, and two passive micr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Author: Singarayer, Joy S.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2003
Subjects:
Online Access:https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34509/
https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34509/1/grl16638.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1029/2002GL016640
Description
Summary:Several continuous observational datasets of Artic sea-ice concentration are currently available that cover the period since the advent of routine satellite observations. We report on a comparison of three sea-ice concentration datasets. These are the National Ice Center charts, and two passive microwave radiometer datasets derived using different approaches: the NASA team and Bootstrap algorithms. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analyses were employed to compare modes of variability and their consistency between the datasets. The analysis was motivated by the need for a reliable, realistic sea ice climatology for use in climate model simulations, for which both the variability and absolute values of extent and concentration are important. We found that, while there are significant discrepancies in absolute concentrations, the major modes of variability derived from all records were essentially the same.