Airborne Passive Microwave Measurements from the AMISA 2008 Science Campaign for Modeling of Arctic Sea Ice Heating
Abstract
While climate changes in the Arctic are occurring more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth model-based predictions of sea ice extent are at once both more optimistic than the data suggest and exhibit a high degree of variability. It is believed that this high level of uncertainty is the result of an inadequate quantitative understanding of surface heating mechanisms, which in large part is due to a lack of high spatial resolution data on boundary layer and surface energy processes during melt and freezeup. In August 2008 the NASA Arctic Mechanisms of Interactions between the Surface and Atmosphere (AMISA) campaign, in conjunction with the Swedish-led Arctic Summer Cloud-Ocean Study (ASCOS) conducted coordinated high spatial resolution measurements of geophysical parameters in the Arctic relevant to atmospheric-sea ice interaction. The IPY-approved AMISA campaign used airborne radiometers, including the Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR) system, a suite of L-band to V-band fixed-beam radiometers for cloud liquid and water vapor measurement, short and longwave radiation sensors, meteorological parameters from cloud size distribution probes, GPS dropsondes, and aerosol sensors. Calibration of the PSR is achieved through periodic observations of stable references such as thermal blackbody targets and noise diodes. A combination of methods using both infrequent external thermal blackbody views and brief frequent internal noise sources has proven practical for airborne systems such as the PSR and is proposed for spaceborne systems such as GeoMAS. Once radiometric data is calibrated it is then rasterized into brightness temperature images which are then geo-located and imported into Google EarthTM. An example brightness temperature map from the AMISA 2008 campaign is included in this abstract. The analysis of this data provides a basis for the development of a heat flux model needed to decrease the uncertainly in weather and climate predictions within the Arctic. In particular, airborne radiometer measurements used to calculate accurate scene brightness temperature maps are necessary to optimally extract parameters of the sea water, sea ice and (at higher frequencies ~89 GHz) Arctic clouds.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFM.A51A0145Z
- Keywords:
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- 0694 ELECTROMAGNETICS / Instruments and techniques;
- 3360 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Remote sensing