G02159
Arctic Sea Ice Melt Pond Statistics and Maps, 1999-2001
Fetterer, F., S. Wilds, and J. Sloan.
Arctic Sea Ice Melt Pond Statistics and Maps, 1999-2001
2008-08-18
Boulder, Colorado USA
NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center
http://nsidc.org/data/g02159.html
http://dx.doi.org/10.7265/N5PK0D32
Investigator
Florence
Fetterer
fetterer@nsidc.org
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Boulder
CO
USA
Investigator
Stanley
Wilds
Denver Federal Center
Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center
Lakewood
CO
USA
Investigator
Jeffrey
Sloan
Denver Federal Center
Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center
Lakewood
CO
USA
Technical Contact
NSIDC
User Services
nsidc@nsidc.org
1 303 492-6199 x
1 303 492-2468 x
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder
CO
80309-0449
USA
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Sea Ice
Heat Flux
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Sea Ice
Ice Floes
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Sea Ice
Ice Growth/Melt
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Sea Ice
Ice Roughness
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Sea Ice
Sea Ice Concentration
EARTH SCIENCE
Cryosphere
Snow/Ice
Albedo
EARTH SCIENCE
Oceans
Sea Ice
Heat Flux
EARTH SCIENCE
Oceans
Sea Ice
Ice Floes
EARTH SCIENCE
Oceans
Sea Ice
Ice Growth/Melt
EARTH SCIENCE
Oceans
Sea Ice
Ice Roughness
EARTH SCIENCE
Oceans
Sea Ice
Sea Ice Concentration
EARTH SCIENCE
Spectral/Engineering
Visible Wavelengths
Visible Imagery
EARTH SCIENCE
Terrestrial Hydrosphere
Snow/Ice
Albedo
Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere
Oceans
Melt Pond Area
Melt Pond Size Statistics
SATELLITES
1999-08-01
2001-09-30
complete
73
90
-180
180
OCEAN
ARCTIC OCEAN
OCEAN
ARCTIC OCEAN
BEAUFORT SEA
Sun angle and light levels varied, and images varied in dynamic range. This necessitated using supervised maximum likelihood classification for the best possible classification result. Producing the surface type maps was a subjective process for which no independent checks were available. Limitations include the 1 m resolution of the images (smaller ponds are not detected), and false detections because of ridge shadows. Based on earlier work (Fetterer and Untersteiner 1998), we estimate the accuracy of the pond coverage at ±5 percent. This data set cannot approach the accuracy of detailed surface observations like those acquired at SHEBA, but it does provide spatial coverage and a number of samples that would be difficult to acquire in any other way.
The Excel file, Image_file_summary.xls, has a quality ranking for each image. These were assigned subjectively when the supervised classification was performed, and indicate confidence in the pond coverage statistics. Quality is ranked optimal (highest confidence in results), good, questionable (use results with care) and poor. Those ranked poor will not have surface type coverage statistics data, but may have been processed only to obtain image files that show floe morphology.
English
NSIDC_NOAA
NSIDC
National Snow and Ice Data Center
http://nsidc.org
Data Center Contact
NSIDC
User Services
nsidc@nsidc.org
1 303 492-6199
1 303 492-2468
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder
CO
80309-0449
USA
NSIDC_NOAA
NSIDC National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://nsidc.org/noaa/
Data Center Contact
NSIDC NOAA
User Services
nsidc@nsidc.org
1 303 492-6199
1 303 492-2468
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder
CO
80309-0449
USA
FTP
ASCII Text
FTP
Microsoft Excel
FTP
20 - 150 KB
GeoTIFF
FTP
20 - 150 KB
JPEG
FTP
20 - 150 KB
PNG
Barber D. G., J. Yackel . The physical, radiative and microwave scattering characteristics of melt ponds on Arctic landfast sea ice. International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 20, Number 10, 10 July 1999 , pp. 2069-2090(22)
Duda, Richard O., and Peter E. Hart. 1973. Pattern classification and scene analysis. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 482 pp.
Eicken, H., H. R. Krouse, D. Kadko, and D. K. Perovich (2002), Tracer studies of pathways and rates of meltwater transport through Arctic summer sea ice, J. Geophys. Res., 107(C10), 8046, doi:10.1029/2000JC000583.
Fetterer, F., and N. Untersteiner. 1998a. Observations of Melt Ponds on Arctic Sea Ice. Journal of Geophysical Research, 103 (C11), 24,821-24,835
Fetterer, F., and N. Untersteiner, Melt pond coverage statistics from classified satellite data, in International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, (on CD-ROM), IEEE 97CH36174, Seattle, WA, 1998b. Grenfell, T.C., and G.A. Maykut. The optical properties of ice and snow in the Arctic basin. Journal of Glaciology, 18 (80), 445-463, 1977.
Langleben, M.P. Albedo of melting sea ice in the southern Beaufort sea, Journal of Glaciology, 10 (58), 101-104, 1971.
Moritz, R.E., J.A. Curry, A.S. Thorndike, and N. Untersteiner, SHEBA: a Research Program on the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean, 34 pp., Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, 1993.
Morassutti, M.P., and E.F. LeDrew, Albedo and Depth of Melt Ponds on Sea Ice, International Journal of Climatology, 16, 817-838, 1996
NSIDC. 2000. SHEBA Reconnaissance Imagery, Version 1.0. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.
Perovich, D.K., and W.B.Tucker III, Arctic sea-ice conditions and the distribution of solar radiation during summer, Annals of Glaciology, 25, 445-450, 1997.
Perovich, D.K., C.S. Roesler, and W.S. Pegau, Variability in Arctic sea ice optical properties, Journal of Geophysical Research, 103 (C1), 1193-1208, 1998. Perovich, D. K., T. C. Grenfell, J. A. Richter-Menge, B. Light, W. B. Tucker III, and H. Eicken, Thin and thinner: Sea ice mass balance measurements during SHEBA, J. Geophys. Res., 108(C3), 8050, doi:10.1029/2001JC001079, 2003. Perovich, D.K., et al., Year on ice gives climate insights, EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 80, 481, 485-486, 1999.
Perovich, D.K., T.C. Grenfell, B. Light, J.A. Richter-Menge, M. Sturm, W.B. Tucker III, H. Eicken, G.A. Maykut, and B. Elder, SHEBA: Snow and Ice Studies, CD-ROM, October, 1999. Perovich, D. K., W. B. Tucker III, and K. A. Ligett (2002), Aerial observations of the evolution of ice surface conditions during summer, J. Geophys. Res., 107(C10), 8048, doi:10.1029/2000JC000449
Richelson, J.T., Scientists in black, Scientific American, 278 (2), 48-55, 1998.
Tschudi, M. A., J. A. Curry, and J. A. Maslanik (2001), Airborne observations of summertime surface features and their effect on surface albedo during FIRE/SHEBA, J. Geophys. Res., 106(D14), 15,335 15,344.
Tschudi, M.A., J.A. Curry, and J.A. Maslanik, Determination of areal surface-feature coverage in the Beaufort Sea using aircraft video data, Annals of Glaciology, 25, 434-438, 1997.
Yackel, J. J.; Barber, D. G.; Papakyriakou, T. N.; Breneman, C., First-year sea ice spring melt transitions in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from time-series synthetic aperture radar data, 1992-2002, Hydrological Processes, vol. 21, Issue 2, pp.253-265
Visible band imagery from high-resolution satellites were acquired over four Arctic Ocean sites (three in 1999) during the summers of 1999, 2000, and 2001. The sites were within the median extent of the perennial ice pack. Imagery was analyzed using supervised maximum likelihood classification to derive either two (water and ice) or three (pond, open water, and ice) surface classes. Clouds were masked by hand. The data set consists of tables of pond coverage and size statistics for 500 m square cells within 10 km square images (image resolution is 1 meter), along with the surface type maps called Image Derived Products (IDPs) from which the pond statistics were derived. A total of 101 images over the three summers and four sites were used for pond statistics, out of a total of 1056 images acquired. The images are irregularly spaced in time.
Data are stored in Microsoft Excel format and ASCII text, image files are stored as GeoTIFF binary images, browse images in PNG, and JPG image files, and are available from August 1999 and generally for May into September for 2000 and 2001 via FTP.
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Sea Ice Melt Pond Data from the Canadian Arctic
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http://nsidc.org/data/g02180.html
SHEBA Reconnaissance Imagery
CEOS IDN DIF
9.7
2008-08-18
2013-03-07
Added DOI