scholarly journals Deriving Arctic 2 m air temperatures over snow and ice from satellite surface temperature measurements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pia Nielsen-Englyst ◽  
Jacob L. Høyer ◽  
Kristine S. Madsen ◽  
Rasmus T. Tonboe ◽  
Gorm Dybkjær

Abstract. The Arctic region is responding heavily to climate change, and yet, the air temperature of Arctic, ice covered areas is heavily under-sampled when it comes to in situ measurements, and large uncertainties exist in weather- and reanalysis products. This paper presents a method for estimating daily mean 2 meter air temperatures (T2m) in the Arctic from satellite observations of skin temperature, using the Arctic and Antarctic ice Surface Temperatures from thermal Infrared (AASTI) satellite dataset, providing spatially detailed observations of the Arctic. The method is based on a linear regression model which has been developed using in situ observations and daily mean satellite ice surface skin temperatures combined with a seasonal variation to estimate daily T2m. The satellite derived T2m product including estimated uncertainties covers clear sky snow and ice surfaces in the Arctic region during the period 2000–2009. Comparison with independent in situ measured T2m gives average correlations of 95.5 % and 96.5 % and average root mean square errors of 3.47 °C and 3.19 °C for land ice and sea ice, respectively. The reconstruction provides a much better spatial coverage than the sparse in situ observations of T2m in the Arctic, is independent of numerical weather prediction model input and it therefore provides an important alternative to simulated air temperatures to be used for assimilation or global surface temperature reconstructions. A comparison between in situ T2m versus T2m from satellite and ERA-Interim shows that the T2m derived from satellite observations validate similar or better than ERA-Interim estimates in the Arctic.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pia Nielsen-Englyst ◽  
Jacob L. Høyer ◽  
Kristine S. Madsen ◽  
Rasmus T. Tonboe ◽  
Gorm Dybkjær ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Arctic region is responding heavily to climate change, and yet, the air temperature of ice covered areas in the Arctic is heavily under-sampled when it comes to in situ measurements, resulting in large uncertainties in existing weather- and reanalysis products. This paper presents a method for estimating daily mean clear sky 2 meter air temperatures (T2m) in the Arctic from satellite observations of skin temperature, using the Arctic and Antarctic ice Surface Temperatures from thermal Infrared (AASTI) satellite dataset, providing spatially detailed observations of the Arctic. The method is based on a linear regression model, which has been tuned against in situ observations to estimate daily mean T2m based on clear sky satellite ice surface skin temperatures. The daily satellite derived T2m product includes estimated uncertainties and covers clear sky snow and ice surfaces in the Arctic region during the period 2000–2009, provided on a 0.25 degree regular latitude-longitude grid. Comparisons with independent in situ measured T2m show average biases of 0.30 °C and 0.35 °C and average root mean square errors of 3.47 °C and 3.20 °C for land ice and sea ice, respectively. The associated uncertainties are verified to be very realistic for both land ice and sea ice, using in situ observations. The reconstruction provides a much better spatial coverage than the sparse in situ observations of T2m in the Arctic, is independent of numerical weather prediction model input and it therefore provides an important supplement to simulated air temperatures to be used for assimilation or global surface temperature reconstructions. A comparison between in situ T2m versus T2m derived from satellite and ERA-Interim/ERA5 estimates shows that the T2m derived from satellite observations validate similar or better than ERA-Interim/ERA5 in the Arctic.


2016 ◽  
Vol 97 (6) ◽  
pp. 1033-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taneil Uttal ◽  
Sandra Starkweather ◽  
James R. Drummond ◽  
Timo Vihma ◽  
Alexander P. Makshtas ◽  
...  

Abstract International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) activities and partnerships were initiated as a part of the 2007–09 International Polar Year (IPY) and are expected to continue for many decades as a legacy program. The IASOA focus is on coordinating intensive measurements of the Arctic atmosphere collected in the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, and Greenland to create synthesis science that leads to an understanding of why and not just how the Arctic atmosphere is evolving. The IASOA premise is that there are limitations with Arctic modeling and satellite observations that can only be addressed with boots-on-the-ground, in situ observations and that the potential of combining individual station and network measurements into an integrated observing system is tremendous. The IASOA vision is that by further integrating with other network observing programs focusing on hydrology, glaciology, oceanography, terrestrial, and biological systems it will be possible to understand the mechanisms of the entire Arctic system, perhaps well enough for humans to mitigate undesirable variations and adapt to inevitable change.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1009-1043 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Dybkjær ◽  
R. Tonboe ◽  
J. Høyer

Abstract. The ice surface temperature (IST) is an important boundary condition for both atmospheric and ocean and sea ice models and for coupled systems. An operational ice surface temperature product using satellite Metop AVHRR infra-red data was developed for MyOcean. The IST can be mapped in clear sky regions using a split window algorithm specially tuned for sea ice. Clear sky conditions are prevailing during spring in the Arctic while persistent cloud cover limits data coverage during summer. The cloud covered regions are detected using the EUMETSAT cloud mask. The Metop IST compares to 2 m temperature at the Greenland ice cap Summit within STD error of 3.14 °C and to Arctic drifting buoy temperature data within STD error of 3.69 °C. A case study reveal that the in situ radiometer data versus satellite IST STD error can be much lower (0.73 °C) and that the different in situ measures complicates the validation. Differences and variability between Metop IST and in situ data are analysed and discussed. An inter-comparison of Metop IST, numerical weather prediction temperatures and in situ observation indicates large biases between the different quantities. Because of the scarcity of conventional surface temperature or surface air temperature data in the Arctic the satellite IST data with its relatively good coverage can potentially add valuable information to model analysis for the Arctic atmosphere.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Polina Osipova ◽  
Vladimir Mogilatov ◽  
Arkadiy Zlobinskiy

Electromagnetic sounding of the Arctic region is hampered by the influence of the conductive layer of seawater. As part of the RSF project, it is proposed to use a circular electrical dipole (CED) to excite the field. Installation should be placed on drifting ice. This technique requires three-dimensional modeling for which there are complex algorithms. The paper proposes an approach using the Born approximation to simplify the implementation of three-dimensional modeling of the electromagnetic sounding signal using CED.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 11095-11106 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Wegner ◽  
J.-U. Grooß ◽  
M. von Hobe ◽  
F. Stroh ◽  
O. Sumińska-Ebersoldt ◽  
...  

Abstract. Chlorine activation in the Arctic is investigated by examining different parameterizations for uptake coefficients on stratospheric aerosols, high-resolution in-situ measurements and vortex-wide satellite observations. The parameterizations for heterogeneous chemistry on liquid aerosols are most sensitive to temperature with the reaction rates doubling for every 1 K increase in temperature. However, differences between the currently available parameterizations are negligible. For Nitric Acid Trihydrate particles (NAT) the major factors of uncertainty are the number density of nucleated particles and different parameterizations for heterogeneous chemistry. These two factors induce an uncertainty that covers several orders of magnitude on the reaction rate. Nonetheless, since predicted reaction rates on liquid aerosols always exceed those on NAT, the overall uncertainty for chlorine activation is small. In-situ observations of ClOx from Arctic winters in 2005 and 2010 are used to evaluate the heterogeneous chemistry parameterizations. The conditions for these measurements proved to be very different between those two winters with HCl being the limiting reacting partner for the 2005 measurements and ClONO2 for the 2010 measurements. Modeled levels of chlorine activation are in very good agreement with the in-situ observations and the surface area provided by Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs) has only a limited impact on modeled chlorine activation. This indicates that the parameterizations give a good representation of the processes in the atmosphere. Back-trajectories started on the location of the observations in 2005 indicate temperatures on the threshold for PSC formation, hence the surface area is mainly provided by the background aerosol. Still, the model shows additional chlorine activation during this time-frame, providing cautionary evidence for chlorine activation even in the absence of PSCs. Vortex-averaged satellite observations by the MLS instrument also show no definite connection between chlorine activation and PSC formation. The inter -and intra-annual variability of vortex-average HCl and HNO3 based on MLS observations is examined for the Arctic winters 2004/2005 to 2010/2011. These observations show that removal of HCl and HNO3 from the gas-phase are not correlated. HNO3 loss exhibits great inter-annual variability depending on prevailing temperatures while HCl loss is continuous through December without considerable inter- or intra-annual variability. Only the recovery of HCl in late winter depends on the level of denitrification. Hence, the occurrence of HNO3 containing PSC particles does not seem to have a significant effect on the speed of initial chlorine activation on a vortex-wide scale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2813
Author(s):  
Yining Yu ◽  
Wanxin Xiao ◽  
Zhilun Zhang ◽  
Xiao Cheng ◽  
Fengming Hui ◽  
...  

In data-sparse regions such as the Arctic, atmospheric reanalysis is one of the key tools for understanding rapid climate change at the regional and global scales. The utility of reanalysis datasets based on data assimilation is affected by their accuracy and biases. Therefore, it is important to evaluate their performance. Here, we conduct inter-comparisons of two temperature variables, namely, the 2-m air temperature (Ta) and the surface temperature (Ts), from the widely used ERA-I and ERA5 reanalysis datasets provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) against in situ observations from three international buoy programs (i.e., the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP), the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL)) during 2010–2020 in the Arctic. Overall, the results show that both the ERA-I and ERA5 were well correlated with the buoy observations, with the highest correlation coefficient reaching 0.98. There were generally warm Ta biases for both ERA-I (2.27 ± 3.33 °C) and ERA5 (2.34 ± 3.22 °C) when compared with more than 3000 matching pairs of daily buoy observations. The warm Ta biases of both reanalysis datasets exhibited seasonal variations, reaching the maximum of 3.73 ± 2.84 °C in April and the minimum of 1.36 ± 2.51 °C in September. For Ts, both ERA-I and ERA5 exhibited good consistencies with the buoy observations, but have higher amplitude biases compared with those for Ta, with generally negative biases of −4.79 ± 4.86 °C for ERA-I and −4.11 ± 3.92 °C for ERA5. For both reanalysis datasets, the largest bias of Ts (−11.18 ± 3.08 °C) occurred in December, while the biases were rather small (less than −3 °C) in the warmer months (April to October). The cold Ts biases for ERA-I and ERA5 were probably overestimated due to the location of the surface temperature sensors on the buoys, which may have been affected by snow cover. Both the Ta and Ts biases varied for different buoy programs and different sea ice concentration conditions, yet they exhibited similar trends.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 20561-20591 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Wegner ◽  
J.-U. Grooß ◽  
M. von Hobe ◽  
F. Stroh ◽  
O. Sumińska-Ebersoldt ◽  
...  

Abstract. Chlorine activation in the Arctic is evaluated by examining the different parameterizations for uptake coefficients on stratospheric aerosols, high-resolution in-situ measurements and vortex-wide satellite observations. The parameterizations for heterogeneous chemistry on liquid aerosols are most sensitive to temperature with the reaction rates doubling for each Kelvin increase in temperature. However, differences between the parameterizations are negligible. For Nitric Acid Trihydrate particles (NAT) the major factors of uncertainty are the number density of nucleated particles and different parameterization choices. These two factors induce an uncertainty that covers several orders of magnitude on the reaction rate. But as predicted reaction rates on liquid aerosols always exceed those on NAT the overall uncertainty is small. In-situ observations of ClOx from Arctic winters in 2005 and 2010 are used to validate the heterogeneous chemistry parameterizations. The ambient conditions for these measurements proved to be very different between those two winters with HCl being the limiting reacting partner for the 2005 measurements and ClONO2 for the 2010 measurements. Modeled levels of chlorine activation are in very good agreement with the in-situ observations and the surface area provided by Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs) has only a limited impact on modeled chlorine activation. This indicates that the parameterizations give a good representation of the processes in the atmosphere. Back-trajectories started on the location of the observations in 2005 indicate temperatures on the threshold for PSC formation, hence the surface area is mainly provided by the background aerosol. Still, the model shows additional chlorine activation during this time-frame, providing cautionary evidence for chlorine activation even in the absence of PSCs. Vortex-averaged satellite observations also show no definite connection between chlorine activation and PSC formation. The inter- and intra-annual variability of vortex-average HCl and HNO3 based on MLS observations is examined for the Arctic winters 2004/2005 to 2010/2011. These observations show that removal of HCl and HNO3 from the gas-phase are not correlated. HNO3 loss exhibits great inter-annual variability depending on prevailing temperatures while HCl loss is continuous through December without considerable inter- or intra-annual variability. Only the recovery of HCl in late in winter depends on the level of denitrification. Hence, the occurrence of HNO3 containing PSC particles does not seem to have a significant effect on the speed of initial chlorine activation on a vortex-wide scale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2987
Author(s):  
Adrian Dye ◽  
Robert Bryant ◽  
Emma Dodd ◽  
Fran Falcini ◽  
David M. Rippin

Despite an increase in heatwaves and rising air temperatures in the Arctic, little research has been conducted into the temperatures of proglacial lakes in the region. An assumption persists that they are cold and uniformly feature a temperature of 1 °C. This is important to test, given the rising air temperatures in the region (reported in this study) and potential to increase water temperatures, thus increasing subaqueous melting and the retreat of glacier termini from where they are in contact with lakes. Through analysis of ASTER surface temperature product data, we report warm (>4 °C) proglacial lake surface water temperatures (LSWT) for both ice-contact and non-ice-contact lakes, as well as substantial spatial heterogeneity. We present in situ validation data (from problematic maritime areas) and a workflow that facilitates the extraction of robust LSWT data from the high-resolution (90 m) ASTER surface temperature product (AST08). This enables spatial patterns to be analysed in conjunction with surrounding thermal influences, such as parent glaciers and topographies. This workflow can be utilised for the analysis of the LSWT data of other small lakes and crucially allows high spatial resolution study of how they have responded to changes in climate. Further study of the LSWT is essential in the Arctic given the amplification of climate change across the region.


Author(s):  
Josefino C. Comiso ◽  
Dorothy K. Hall ◽  
Ignatius Rigor

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