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Cited by 89Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamicsCryospheric studies and observationsOcean Waves and Remote Sensing

The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations

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Kern, Stefan, Rösel, Anja, Pedersen, Leif Toudal, Ivanova, Natalia, Saldo, Roberto, Tonboe, Rasmus Tage·2016·The Cryosphere
DOI 10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016

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Abstract

Abstract. Sea-ice concentrations derived from satellite microwave brightness temperatures are less accurate during summer. In the Arctic Ocean the lack of accuracy is primarily caused by melt ponds, but also by changes in the properties of snow and the sea-ice surface itself. We investigate the sensitivity of eight sea-ice concentration retrieval algorithms to melt ponds by comparing sea-ice concentration with the melt-pond fraction. We derive gridded daily sea-ice concentrations from microwave brightness temperatures of summer 2009. We derive the daily fraction of melt ponds, open water between ice floes, and the ice-surface fraction from contemporary Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance data. We only use grid cells where the MODIS sea-ice concentration, which is the melt-pond fraction plus the ice-surface fraction, exceeds 90 %. For one group of algorithms, e.g., Bristol and Comiso bootstrap frequency mode (Bootstrap_f), sea-ice concentrations are linearly related to the MODIS melt-pond fraction quite clearly after June. For other algorithms, e.g., Near90GHz and Comiso bootstrap polarization mode (Bootstrap_p), this relationship is weaker and develops later in summer. We attribute the variation of the sensitivity to the melt-pond fraction across the algorithms to a different sensitivity of the brightness temperatures to snow-property variations. We find an underestimation of the sea-ice concentration by between 14 % (Bootstrap_f) and 26 % (Bootstrap_p) for 100 % sea ice with a melt-pond fraction of 40 %. The underestimation reduces to 0 % for a melt-pond fraction of 20 %. In presence of real open water between ice floes, the sea-ice concentration is overestimated by between 26 % (Bootstrap_f) and 14 % (Bootstrap_p) at 60 % sea-ice concentration and by 20 % across all algorithms at 80 % sea-ice concentration. None of the algorithms investigated performs best based on our investigation of data from summer 2009. We suggest that those algorithms which are more sensitive to melt ponds could be optimized more easily because the influence of unknown snow and sea-ice surface property variations is less pronounced.

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  • All SIC algorithms based on passive microwave data are very sensitive to melt-pond water on top of the ice.

    “All SIC algorithms based on the passive microwave data are very sensitive to melt-pond water on top of the ice (Kern et al., 2016).”

    From Version 2 of the EUMETSAT OSI SAF and ESA CCI sea-ice concentration climate data records (2019) · cites this paper as Kern et al., 2016

    The Conclusions report that all eight algorithms investigated underestimated sea-ice concentration when melt ponds covered 40% of the ice. But the paper does not establish that all passive-microwave SIC algorithms are *very* sensitive: Section 4.3.3 says Near90_lin is sensitive only to some degree, and the Conclusions identify Bootstrap_p and NASA Team as having the lowest sensitivity. Page numbers were not supplied. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kern, S., Rösel, A., Pedersen, L. T., Ivanova, N., Saldo, R., & Tonboe, R. T.
Affiliations
  • Norwegian Polar Institute (NO)
  • Danish Meteorological Institute (DK)
  • Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NO)
  • Technical University of Denmark (DK)
Corresponding author
Kern, Stefan
ORCID
Venue
The Cryosphere
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Published
2016-09-26
Volume
10
Issue
5
Pages
2217-2239
ISSN
  • 1994-0416 (ISSN-L)
  • 1994-0424
DOI
10.5194/tc-10-2217-2016
OpenAlex
W2238801324
Cited by
89
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 3
FWCI
4.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • The Cryosphere (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • Technical University of Denmark, DTU Orbit (Technical University of Denmark, DTU) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Universität Hamburg
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Cryospheric studies and observations
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Ocean Waves and Remote Sensing
Keywords
melt ponds, sea ice concentration, microwave brightness temperature, Arctic Ocean, snow properties, ice surface properties, MODIS reflectance, summer 2009

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