KEYWORDS: Microwave radiation, Data modeling, Atmospheric modeling, Radiometry, Synthetic aperture radar, Temperature metrology, Lead, Atmospheric sensing, In situ metrology, Global Positioning System
A multidisciplinary, multi-institution team of scientists has been working for over three years to evaluate the performance of sea ice parameter algorithms applied to data from the AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - EOS) carried aboard NASA's Aqua platform. The AMSR-E data and derived sea ice geophysical products have been compared against a variety of measurements, including ground truth data from an ice field camp, imagery from aerosondes and an aircraft-borne microwave radiometer, and imagery from RADARSAT, MODIS, and AVHRR. Arctic ice environments examined include first-year and multiyear pack ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, polynyas and flaw leads in the Bering Sea, and the ice edge. This paper will outline the AMSRIce03 project, cover the validation methodology in detail, and discuss the results and their implications for use of sea ice products derived from the AMSR-E.
The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) is a passive microwave radiometer on board the National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua satellite. Aqua, a sun-synchronous polar orbiting platform, is one of a series of spacecraft launched by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise to obtain remotely-sensed data for the advancement of Earth System Science.
The AMSR-E measures passive microwave radiation, allowing for derivation of many parameters, including soil moisture, sea surface temperatures, rain rate, snow cover and sea ice extent. The instrument provides improved spatial resolution compared to earlier generations of spacecraft-borne passive microwave instruments (e.g., SMMR and SSM/I) and retrieves information in more frequencies of the microwave spectrum than its predecessors.
Data products are archived and distributed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder (www.nsidc.org/daac/amsr/). This paper summarizes the AMSR-E data sets that will be available at NSIDC and discusses research applications of some of them.
The National Space Development Agency of Japan Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) was successfully launched on NASA's EOS Aqua spacecraft on May 4, 2002. This new state-of-the-art satellite radiometer will provide a wider range of frequencies and twice the spatial resolution than is currently available with the DMSP
SSM/I. New sea ice algorithms have been developed for use with the AMSR-E. The standard sea ice products to be provided include sea ice concentration at spatial resolutions of 12.5 km and 25.0 km, snow depth on sea ice at a spatial resolution of 12.5 km, and sea ice temperature at a spatial resolution of 25 km. This paper provides a summary of our plans to validate the AMSR-E sea ice products in the Arctic. The overall validation program consists of three elements:
satellite data comparisons, coordinated satellite/aircraft/surface comparisons, and a modeling and sensitivity analysis component. The first coordinated satellite/aircraft/surface Arctic campaign is planned for March 2003. A second campaign is planned for March 2005.
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