Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission

<p>Across spatial and temporal scales, sea-ice motion has implications for ship navigation, the sea-ice thickness distribution, sea-ice export to lower latitudes and re-circulation in the polar seas, among others. Satellite remote sensing is an effective way to monitor sea-ice drift globally a...

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Main Authors: T. Lavergne, M. Piñol Solé, E. Down, C. Donlon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2021-08-01
Series:The Cryosphere
Online Access:https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/3681/2021/tc-15-3681-2021.pdf
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author T. Lavergne
M. Piñol Solé
E. Down
C. Donlon
author_facet T. Lavergne
M. Piñol Solé
E. Down
C. Donlon
author_sort T. Lavergne
collection DOAJ
description <p>Across spatial and temporal scales, sea-ice motion has implications for ship navigation, the sea-ice thickness distribution, sea-ice export to lower latitudes and re-circulation in the polar seas, among others. Satellite remote sensing is an effective way to monitor sea-ice drift globally and daily, especially using the wide swaths of passive microwave missions. Since the late 1990s, many algorithms and products have been developed for this task. Here, we investigate how processing sea-ice drift vectors from the intersection of individual swaths of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) mission compares to today's status quo (processing from daily averaged maps of brightness temperature). We document that the “swath-to-swath” (S2S) approach results in many more (2 orders of magnitude) sea-ice drift vectors than the “daily map” (DM) approach. These S2S vectors also validate better when compared to trajectories of on-ice drifters. For example, the RMSE of the 24 h winter Arctic sea-ice drift is 0.9 km for S2S vectors and 1.3 km for DM vectors from the 36.5 GHz imagery of AMSR2. Through a series of experiments with actual AMSR2 data and simulated Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) data, we study the impact that geolocation uncertainty and imaging resolution have on the accuracy of the sea-ice drift vectors. We conclude by recommending that a swath-to-swath approach is adopted for the future operational Level-2 sea-ice drift product of the CIMR mission. We outline some potential next steps towards further improving the algorithms and making the user community ready to fully take advantage of such a product.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-701c9b31dc764546bdd04e03f9506fd72022-12-21T18:31:34ZengCopernicus PublicationsThe Cryosphere1994-04161994-04242021-08-01153681369810.5194/tc-15-3681-2021Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer missionT. Lavergne0M. Piñol Solé1E. Down2C. Donlon3Research and Development Department, Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Oslo, NorwayEuropean Space Agency, Keplerlaan 1, 2201AZ Noordwijk, the NetherlandsResearch and Development Department, Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Oslo, NorwayEuropean Space Agency, Keplerlaan 1, 2201AZ Noordwijk, the Netherlands<p>Across spatial and temporal scales, sea-ice motion has implications for ship navigation, the sea-ice thickness distribution, sea-ice export to lower latitudes and re-circulation in the polar seas, among others. Satellite remote sensing is an effective way to monitor sea-ice drift globally and daily, especially using the wide swaths of passive microwave missions. Since the late 1990s, many algorithms and products have been developed for this task. Here, we investigate how processing sea-ice drift vectors from the intersection of individual swaths of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) mission compares to today's status quo (processing from daily averaged maps of brightness temperature). We document that the “swath-to-swath” (S2S) approach results in many more (2 orders of magnitude) sea-ice drift vectors than the “daily map” (DM) approach. These S2S vectors also validate better when compared to trajectories of on-ice drifters. For example, the RMSE of the 24 h winter Arctic sea-ice drift is 0.9 km for S2S vectors and 1.3 km for DM vectors from the 36.5 GHz imagery of AMSR2. Through a series of experiments with actual AMSR2 data and simulated Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) data, we study the impact that geolocation uncertainty and imaging resolution have on the accuracy of the sea-ice drift vectors. We conclude by recommending that a swath-to-swath approach is adopted for the future operational Level-2 sea-ice drift product of the CIMR mission. We outline some potential next steps towards further improving the algorithms and making the user community ready to fully take advantage of such a product.</p>https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/3681/2021/tc-15-3681-2021.pdf
spellingShingle T. Lavergne
M. Piñol Solé
E. Down
C. Donlon
Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
The Cryosphere
title Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
title_full Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
title_fullStr Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
title_full_unstemmed Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
title_short Towards a swath-to-swath sea-ice drift product for the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer mission
title_sort towards a swath to swath sea ice drift product for the copernicus imaging microwave radiometer mission
url https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/3681/2021/tc-15-3681-2021.pdf
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AT edown towardsaswathtoswathseaicedriftproductforthecopernicusimagingmicrowaveradiometermission
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