Publication Date:
2013-12-12
Description:
Passive and active observations at L band (frequency ~1.413 GHz) from the Aquarius/SAC-D mission offer new capabilities to study the polar regions. However, due to the lack of polar-gridded products, applications over the cryosphere are limited. To allow for an efficient use of the Aquarius data over the polar regions, and to move forward our understanding of the L-band observations of ice sheet, sea ice, permafrost, and polar oceans, we present three weekly-polar-gridded products. Aquarius data at latitudes higher than 50° were averaged and gridded into three weekly products of Brightness Temperature (TB), Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS), and Sea Surface Salinity (SSS). These products are suited for cryospheric studies, and each grid cell contains sea ice fraction and the standard deviation of TB, NRCS, and SSS along with the number of footprint observations collected during the seven-day cycle. The data sets are produced on the version 2.0 Equal-Area Scalable Earth (EASE2.0) grid, with a grid cell resolution of 36 km. This paper describes the products, and presents maps and time series of Aquarius weekly-gridded data over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea ice in both hemispheres, subarctic land where seasonal snow and frozen soil may exist, and the polar oceans. A brief analysis of L-band observations is given to encourage future use of the products. They can be used for improving our understanding of low microwave frequency observations, and for the development of algorithms. The new weekly-polar-gridded datasets start in August 2011, with the first Aquarius observations, and it is anticipated that they will be updated on a monthly basis following the release schedule of the Level 2 data sets.
Print ISSN:
1994-0432
Electronic ISSN:
1994-0440
Topics:
Geography
,
Geosciences
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