Sea ice emissivity modelling
Open-knowledge reference entry
With increased interest in sea ice and its effects on the global climate, efficient methods are required to monitor both its extent and exchange processes. Satellite-mounted, microwave radiometers, such SSMI, AMSR and AMSU, are an ideal tool for the task because they can see through cloud cover, and they have frequent, global coverage. A passive microwave instrument detects objects through emitted radiation since different substance have different emission spectra. To detect sea ice more efficiently, there is a need to model these emission processes. The interaction of sea ice with electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range is still not well understood. In general is collected information limited because of the large-scale variability due to the emissivity of sea ice.
General
Satellite microwave data (and visible, infrared data depending on the conditions) collected from sensors assumes that ocean surface is a binary (ice covered or ice free) and observations are used to quantify the radiative flux. During the melt seasons in spring and summer, sea ice surface temperature goes above freezing. Thus, passive microwave measurements are able to detect rising brightness temperatures, as the emissivity increases to almost that of a blackbody, and as liquid starts to form around the ice crystals, but when melting continues, slush forms and then melt ponds and the brightness temperature goes down to that of ice free water. Because the emissivity of sea ice changes over time and often in short time spans, data and algorithms used to interpret findings are crucial.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sea ice emissivity modelling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.