Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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UP: Fachverband Umweltphysik

UP 7: Cryosphere, Hydrosphere and Oceanography

UP 7.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 15:30–15:45, HFT-FT 131

Remote sensing of snow on sea ice — Christian Melsheimer and •Georg Heygster — Institut für Umweltphysik, Universität Bremen

Snow on sea ice significantly reduces the heat flow between the ocean and the atmosphere and thus influences the thickness growth and melting of sea ice. Furthermore, snow on sea ice considerably increases the friction of ice-going ships. Therefore, snow on sea ice is an important quantity for modeling and predicting sea ice, and because of the inaccessibility of most of the sea ice, remote sensing methods are necessary for investigating it. Here, we want to estimate the thickness of the snow layer on sea ice using satellite instruments, namely microwave radiometers, microwave scatterometers and optical sensors.

The base is an algorithm that uses the influence of the snow layer on the thermal microwave emission by the underlying sea ice at 19 and 37 GHz. This algorithm, however, is applicable to level first-year ice under non-melting conditions. To mask out areas where these conditions are not met, the radar backscatter at 5.3 GHz can be inspected as it is increased in melting conditions and for rough ice.

We present first results of implementing this algorithm in an operational processing chain for sea ice concentration and compare with some in-situ measurements.