Abstract
temperatures. Given the high albedo and low thermal conductivity, snow is regarded as one of the key reasons for the amplification of the warming in polar regions. The distributions of sea ice and snow depth are essential to the whole thermal conduction in the Arctic. This study focused on the retrieval of snow depth on sea ice from brightness temperatures of the MicroWave Radiometer Imager (MWRI) onboard the FengYun (FY)-3B satellite during the period from December 1, 2010 to April 30, 2011. After cross calibrated to the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–EOS (AMSR-E) Level 2A data, the MWRI brightness temperatures were applied to calculate the sea ice concentrations based on the Arctic Radiation and Turbulence Interaction Study Sea Ice (ASI) algorithm. According to the proportional relationship between the snow depth and the surface scattering in 18.7 and 36.5 GHz, the snow depths were derived. In order to eliminate the influence of uncertainties in grain sizes of snow as well as sporadic weather effects, the seven-day averaged snow depths were calculated. Then the results were compared with the snow depths from the AMSR-E Level 3 Sea Ice products. The bias of differences between the MWRI and the AMSR-E Level 3 products are ranged between −1.09 and −0.32 cm，while the standard deviations and the correlation coefficients are ranged from 2.47 to 2.88 cm and from 0.78 to 0.90 for different months. As a result, it could be summarized that FY3B/MWRI showed a promising prospect in retrieving snow depth on sea ice.
Highlights
Today the Arctic is an area that attracts intense interest because climate-change signals are expected to be amplified in the region by about 1.5-4.5 times, the high albedo of sea ice and snow depth is postulated as one of the key reasons for the amplification of the warming (Comiso et al, 2014)
Considering that the in situ data are sufficient to develop a new algorithm, this study focuses on how to derive snow depth from MicroWave Radiometer Imager (MWRI) brightness temperatures using the established algorithm in the Arctic
PROCEDURE AND RESULTS 4.1 Procedure Retrieval of the snow depth from brightness temperatures of the MWRI was divided into four steps in this study. 4.1.1 Cross calibration: The first step was to cross calibrate the brightness temperature data from MWRI to the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–EOS (AMSR-E) baseline
Summary
Today the Arctic is an area that attracts intense interest because climate-change signals are expected to be amplified in the region by about 1.5-4.5 times, the high albedo of sea ice and snow depth is postulated as one of the key reasons for the amplification of the warming (Comiso et al, 2014). Comparing to infrared and visible waves, microwave * Corresponding author is the most important way to monitor sea ice and snow in polar region for its characteristics of all-day and all-weather observation. It had significant improvement to sensors before and provided the measurements of terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric parameters to explore the global water and energy cycles. It released the operational sea ice products including sea ice concentration, sea ice temperature and snow depth on sea ice. Till October 4, 2011 when the AMSR-E instrument ceased from producing data due to a problem with the rotation of its antenna, it had released the sea ice products more than nine years. With the capability to provide global, all-weather, multi-spectral, three-dimensional, and accurate observations of atmospheric, oceanic, and land
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