Willatt, Rosemary;
Stroeve, Julienne C;
Nandan, Vishnu;
Newman, Thomas;
Mallett, Robbie;
Hendricks, Stefan;
Ricker, Robert;
... Oggier, Marc; + view all
(2023)
Retrieval of Snow Depth on Arctic Sea Ice From Surface‐Based, Polarimetric, Dual‐Frequency Radar Altimetry.
Geophysical Research Letters
, 50
(20)
, Article e2023GL104461. 10.1029/2023gl104461.
(In press).
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Abstract
Snow depth on sea ice is an Essential Climate Variable and a major source of uncertainty in satellite altimetry‐derived sea ice thickness. During winter of the MOSAiC Expedition, the “KuKa” dual‐frequency, fully polarized Ku‐ and Ka‐band radar was deployed in “stare” nadir‐looking mode to investigate the possibility of combining these two frequencies to retrieve snow depth. Three approaches were investigated: dual‐frequency, dual‐polarization and waveform shape, and compared to independent snow depth measurements. Novel dual‐polarization approaches yielded r2 values up to 0.77. Mean snow depths agreed within 1 cm, even for data sub‐banded to CryoSat‐2 SIRAL and SARAL AltiKa bandwidths. Snow depths from co‐polarized dual‐frequency approaches were at least a factor of four too small and had a r2 0.15 or lower. r2 for waveform shape techniques reached 0.72 but depths were underestimated. Snow depth retrievals using polarimetric information or waveform shape may therefore be possible from airborne/satellite radar altimeters.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Retrieval of Snow Depth on Arctic Sea Ice From Surface‐Based, Polarimetric, Dual‐Frequency Radar Altimetry |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1029/2023gl104461 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL104461 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | sea ice, snow, radar, altimetry, polarimetric, climate |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10179710 |
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