Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Characteristics Derived from Passive Microwave Data  View Catalog Page Entry ID
NSIDC-0218
Summary
The Greenland ice sheet melt extent data, acquired as part of the NASA Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA), is a daily (or every other day, prior to August 1987) estimate of the spatial extent of wet snow on the Greenland ice sheet since 1979. It is derived from passive microwave satellite brightness temperature characteristics using the Cross-Polarized Gradient Ratio (XPGR) of Abdalati and Steffen (1997). It is physically based on the changes in microwave emission characteristics observable in data from the Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) and the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) instruments when surface snow melts. It is not a direct measure of the snow wetness but rather is a binary indicator of the state of melt of each SMMR and SSM/I pixel on the ice sheet for each day of observation. It is, however, a useful proxy for the amount of melt that occurs on the Greenland ice sheet. The data are provided in a variety of formats including raw data in ASCII format, gridded daily data in binary format, and annual and complete time series climatologies in gridded binary and GeoTIFF format. All data are in a 60 x 109 pixel subset of the standard Northern Hemisphere polar stereographic grid with a 25 km resolution and are available via FTP.
Geographic Coverage
Spatial Coordinates:
N: 84°
S: 60°
E: -10°
W: -73°
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Data Set Citation
Dataset Creator: Waleed Abdalati
Dataset Title: Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Characteristics Derived from Passive Microwave Data
Dataset Release Date: 2008-02-25
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, Colorado USA
Dataset Publisher: NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0218.html
Temporal Coverage
Start Date: 1979-04-02
Stop Date: 2007-12-31
Data Resolution
Latitude Resolution: 25 km
Longitude Resolution: 25 km
Temporal Resolution: 29 years
Latitude Resolution: 25 km
Longitude Resolution: 25 km
Latitude Resolution: 25 km
Longitude Resolution: 25 km
Temporal Resolution: 1 year
Location Keywords
- CONTINENT NORTH AMERICA GREENLAND
Science Keywords
- Cryosphere Snow/Ice Snow Melt
- Cryosphere Snow/Ice Snow Melt
- Terrestrial Hydrosphere Snow/Ice Snow Melt
- Terrestrial Hydrosphere Snow/Ice Snow Melt
Ancillary Keywords
- Greenland
- Ice Sheet
- PARCA
- Passive Microwave
- Passive Microwave Data
- Polar Stereographic
- SMMR
- Snow Melt
- SSM/I
- Geoscientific Information
- Imagery/Base Maps/Earth Cover
Platform
- DMSP 5D-2/F11 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-F11
- DMSP 5D-2/F13 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-F13
- DMSP 5D-2/F8 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-F8
- NIMBUS-7
- SATELLITES
Instrument
- SMMR Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer
- SSM/I Special Sensor Microwave/Imager
Project
- PARCA Program in Arctic Regional Climate Assessment
Data Set Progress
in work
Data Center
NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/daac/index.html
Data Center Personnel
Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
- National Snow and Ice Data Center
- CIRES, 449 UCB
- University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org
Data Center Personnel
Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
- National Snow and Ice Data Center
- CIRES, 449 UCB
- University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA
Distribution
Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 0 - 16 KB
Distribution Format: ASCII Text
Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 13 KB
Distribution Format: Binary
Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 2 - 4 KB
Distribution Format: GeoTIFF
Personnel
Waleed Abdalati
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Email: waleed.abdalati@colorado.edu
Contact Address:
- University of Colorado-Boulder/ CIRES
- Director of ESOC/Associate Professor of Geography
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309
Country: USA
NSIDC User Services
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Phone: 1 303 492-6199 x
Fax: 1 303 492-2468 x
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
- National Snow and Ice Data Center
- CIRES, 449 UCB
- University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA
Related URL
VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
NSIDC offers some of our data in the form of images. We have created Google Earth files that enable you to overlay these and other data-based images on a virtual globe.
VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
PARCA Program Web page.
Reference
Abdalati, Waleed and Konrad Steffen. 2001. Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Extent: 1979-1999. Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres) 106(D24): 33983-8. Abdalati, Waleed and Konrad Steffen. 1997. Snowmelt on the Greenland Ice Sheet as Derived from Passive Microwave Satellite Data. Journal of Climate 10: 165-75.
Abdalati, Waleed and Konrad Steffen. 1995. Passive Microwave-derived Snow Melt Regions on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Geophysical Research Letters 22: 787-790. Abdalati, Waleed and J. Stroeve. 1993. Climate Sensitivity Studies of the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Satellite AVHRR, SMMR, SSM/I, and In Situ Data. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 51: 239-258.
Jezek, K. C., C. Merry, D. Cavalieri, S. Grace, J. Bedner, D. Wilson, and D. Lampkin. 1991. Comparison Between SMMR and SSM/I Passive Microwave Data Collected Over the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Byrd Polar Research Center Technical Report 91-03, Ohio State University, Columbus OH, 62 pp.
Mätzler, C. H. and R. Hüppi. 1989. Review of Signature Studies for Microwave Remote Sensing of Snowpacks. Advances in Space Research 9: 253-265.
Ulaby, F. T., R. K. Moore, and A. K. Fung. 1982. Radar Remote Sensing and Surface Scattering and Emission Theory. Microwave Remote Sensing. Vol. 2, Artech House.
Ulaby, F. T., R. K. Moore, and A. K. Fung. 1986. From Theory to Applications. Microwave Remote Sensing. Vol. 3, Artech House.
Metadata Name and Version
Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7
Creation and Review Dates
DIF Creation Date: 2008-02-25
Last DIF Revision Date: 2013-01-10
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