Sea ice small-scale surface roughness estimation based on AMSR-E observations
In this article, the retrieval of a sea ice small-scale surface roughness parameter using a proposed model is investigated at several Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) channels (6.9, 10.7, and 89 GHz) over the Arctic oceans. The AMSR-E 89 GHz observations
with a spatial resolution of approximately 6 km × 4 km, nearly three times the resolution of the currently operational radiometer SSM/I 85 GHz (15 km × 13 km), are fully exploited to retrieve the total and multiyear (MY) ice concentrations through the utilization
of the ARTIST sea ice (ASI) and polarization corrected temperature (PCT) algorithms, respectively. To improve the accuracy of the retrieved ice concentration, a tie-point adaption scheme was used to obtain daily adaptable tie-points for the two ice concentration algorithms. A sea ice small-scale
roughness parameter was then calculated with the model proposed by Hong for the above-mentioned three frequencies. At lower frequencies, such as 6.9 and 10.7 GHz, roughness estimates are available for all ice types. However, estimates at 89 GHz are physically illegitimate over the wintertime
MY ice cover. The model estimates at the two low frequencies were further studied over a protracted period (2003–2010). The annual time series of the averaged estimate over the Arctic sea ice were found to exhibit a slightly decreasing trend (−2.1 × 10−3
and −1.9 × 10−3 cm year−1 for 6.9 and 10.7 GHz, respectively). Meanwhile, the winter time series showed an increasing trend whereas the summer time series showed a remarkably decreasing trend, which indicates more serious melting activity
occurring over the Arctic ice.
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Institute of Remote Sensing Application, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,PR, China 2: Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,PR, China
Publication date: 20 June 2013
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