Retrievals of Arctic sea ice melt pond depth and underlying ice thickness using optical data

Abstract

Melt pond is a distinctive characteristic of the summer Arctic, which affects energy balance in the Arctic system. The Delta-Eddington model (BL) and Two-strEam rAdiative transfer model (TEA) are employed to retrieving pond depth Hp and underlying ice thickness H i according to the ratio X of the melt-pond albedo in two bands. Results showed that when λ1 = 359 nm and λ2 = 605 nm, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient r between X and Hp is 0.99 for the BL model. The result of TEA model was similar to the BL model. The retrievals of Hp for the two models agreed well with field observations. For H i, the highest r (0.99) was obtained when λ 1 = 447 nm and λ2 = 470 nm for the BL model, λ 1 = 447 nm and λ 2 = 451 nm for the TEA model. Furthermore, the BL model was more suitable for the retrieval of thick ice (0 Citation :Zhang H, Yu M, Lu P, et al. Retrievals of Arctic sea ice melt pond depth and underlying ice thickness using optical data. Adv Polar Sci, 2021, 32(2): 105-117, doi: 10.13679/j.advps.2021.0021