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UP: Fachverband Umweltphysik

UP 3: Kryosphäre

UP 3.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 12:15–12:30, GW2 B3009

Multiyear sea ice concentration estimates using ASCAT and AMSR2 data — •Yufang Ye¹, Gunnar Spreen¹, Georg Heygster¹, and Mohammed Shokr² — ¹University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany — ²Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, Canada

Arctic sea ice area is decreasing rapidly during recent decades. Especially strong is the decrease of old multiyear ice (MYI), which survived at least one summer. MYI concentration can be retrieved from passive or active microwave satellite observations. One of the algorithms that combine both types of observations is the Environmental Canada Ice Concentration Extractor (ECICE). In this study, data from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) and the Advanced Microwave Remote Sensing Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) are employed to retrieve MYI concentration. Combined active and passive microwave data can help to identify MYI, however, the retrieval shows flaw under specific weather conditions. Here, two corrections are applied to the MYI concentration retrievals. One correction utilizes air temperature to restore the underestimated MYI concentrations under warm conditions, the other mainly uses sea ice drift to correct the overestimated MYI concentrations. The results are compared with the Canadian Ice Service (CIS) charts and the sea ice age dataset available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The MYI concentration from ASCAT/AMSR2 agrees well with that in the CIS charts. Compared to the ice classified as two years or older in the sea ice age dataset, the MYI concentration from ASCAT/AMSR2 is approximately 50% or greater.