AMSR-E/Aqua Daily L3 12.5 km Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Concentration, & Snow Depth Polar Grids

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Entry ID

AE_SI12

Summary

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) instrument on the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua satellite, provides global passive microwave measurements of land, ocean, and atmospheric variables for the investigation of water and energy cycles.

This Level-3 gridded product (AE_SI12) includes brightness temperatures at 18.7 through 89.0 GHz, sea ice concentration, and snow depth over sea ice. Data are mapped to a polar stereographic grid at 12.5 km spatial resolution. Sea ice concentration and brightness temperatures include daily ascending averages, daily descending averages, and daily averages; snow depth over sea ice data is a five-day running average. Data are stored in HDF-EOS format and are available from 19 June 2002 to present via FTP.

Data Set Citation

Dataset Creator: D. Cavalieri and J. Comiso
Dataset Title: AMSR-E/Aqua Daily L3 12.5 km Brightness Temperature, Sea Ice Concentration, & Snow Depth Polar Grids
Dataset Release Date: 2003-01-01
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, CO U.S.A.
Dataset Publisher: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Version: 2
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/ae_si12.html

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 2002-06-19

Data Resolution

Latitude Resolution: 12.5 km
Longitude Resolution: 12.5 km
Temporal Resolution: Daily

Location Keywords

• Geographic Region Polar

Science Keywords

• Cryosphere Sea Ice Sea Ice Concentration
• Cryosphere Sea Ice Snow Depth
• Oceans Sea Ice Sea Ice Concentration
• Oceans Sea Ice Snow Depth
• Spectral/Engineering Microwave Brightness Temperature
• Spectral/Engineering Microwave Microwave Imagery

Ancillary Keywords

• AE_SI12
• AMSR-E
• Aqua
• BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURES
• DAAC
• EOS PM-1
• EOSDIS
• Imagery
• Modified Bootstrap Algorithm
• Modified NASA Team Algorithm
• NASA
• NSIDC
• Passive Microwave Radiation
• Polar Sea Ice
• Radiance
• Remote Sensing
• Sea Ice Concentrations
• Sea Ice Extent
• Snow cover over sea ice
• Snow Depth Over Sea Ice
• Tbs

ISO Topic Category (View Definitions)

• Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere

Platform

• AQUA Earth Observing System, AQUA

Instrument

• AMSR-E Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS

Project

• EOS Earth Observing System

Quality

Weather filters are employed for the Level-3 sea ice products to eliminate spurious sea ice concentrations over open ocean resulting from varying atmospheric emission. The weather filters are based on threshold values for the spectral gradient radio and thresholds derived from TB differences. Sea ice products are checked to see if ice concentration values fall within reasonable limits. Diagnostics are based in part on satellite sea ice climatology developed since the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) era in 1978.

Data Set Progress

IN WORK

Data Center

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org
Data Set ID: AE_SI121

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

NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/daac/index.html
Data Set ID: AE_SI121

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC DAAC 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: Each daily granule is approximately 60 MB
Distribution Format: HDF-EOS

Personnel

DONALD CAVALIERI
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Phone: (301) 614-5901
Fax: (301) 614-5644
Email: don@cavalieri.gsfc.nasa.gov
Contact Address:
Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Code 971
City: Greenbelt
Province or State: MD
Postal Code: 20771

JOSEPHINO 'JOEY' C. COMISO
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Phone: 301-286-9135
Contact Address:
Code 671 NASA,
Goddard Space Flight Center
City: Greenbelt
Province or State: MD
Postal Code: 20771

Thorsten Markus
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:
Goddard Space Flight Center
Code 975
City: Greenbelt
Province or State: MD
Postal Code: 20771
Country: USA

NSIDC USER SERVICES
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
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

Related URL

GET SERVICE > ACCESS MAP VIEWER
30 day sea ice view

GET SERVICE > GET WEB COVERAGE SERVICE (WCS)
Access the most current data in GeoTIFF format using the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Coverage Service (WCS). A WCS for the Southern Hemisphere will be added soon.

GET SERVICE > GET WEB MAP SERVICE (WMS)
Access the most current Nothern Hemisphere data as map images using the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS). A WMS for the Southern Hemisphere will be added soon.

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
AMSR-E web site at NSIDC

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
NASA AMSR-E web site

Reference

Cavalieri, D. and J. Comiso. 2000. Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document for the AMSR-E Sea Ice Algorithm, Revised December 1. Landover, MD, USA: Goddard Space Flight Center.

Cavalieri, D.J., K.M. St. Germain, and C.T. Swift. 1995. Reduction of weather effects in the calculation of sea ice concentration with the DMSP SSM/I. Journal of Glaciology 41(139): 455-464.

Cavalieri, D.J., P. Gloersen, and W.J. Campbell. 1984. Determination of sea ice parameters with the NIMBUS-7 SMMR. Journal of Geophysical Research 89(D4):5355-5369.

Colbeck, S. C. 1982. An Overview of Seasonal Snow Metamorphism. Reviews of Geophysics Space Physics 20:45-61.

Comiso, J., D. Cavalieri, and T. Markus. 2003. Sea ice concentration, ice temperature, and snow depth using AMSR-E data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 41(2): 243-252.

Comiso, J., and K. Steffen. 2001. Studies of Antarctic sea ice concentrations from satellite data and their applications. Journal of Geophysical Research 106(C12): 31,361-31,385.

Comiso, J. C., D. J. Cavalieri, C. L. Parkinson, and P. Gloersen. 1997. Passive Microwave Algorithms for Sea Ice Concentration - A Comparison of Two Techniques. Remote Sensing of the Environment 60: 357-384. Comiso, J.C. 1995. SSM/I ice concentrations using the Bootstrap Algorithm. NASA RP 1380, 50 pp.

Conway, D. 2002. Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - EOS Quality Assurance Plan. Huntsville, AL: Global Hydrology and Climate Center. Eppler, D. T. and 14 others. 1992. Passive Microwave Signatures of Sea Ice, in Microwave Remote Sensing of Ice. Geophysical Monograph Series 68: 47-71. AGU, Washington, D.C.

Fraser R. S., Gaut, N. E., Reifenstein, E. C., and H. Sievering. 1975. Interaction Mechanisms Within the Atmosphere Including the Manual of Remote Sensing. American Society of Photogrammetry 181-233. Falls Church, VA.

Gloersen P. and D.J. Cavalieri. 1986. Reduction of weather effects in the calculation of sea ice concentration from microwave radiances. Journal of Geophysical Research 91(C3):3913-3919.

Kelly, R. E., A. T. C. Chang, L. Tsang, and J. L. Foster. 2003. A Prototype AMSR-E Global Snow Area and Snow Depth Algorithm. IEEE Transactions Geoscience Remote Sensing 41: 230-242.

Kummerow, C. 1993. On the accuracy of the Eddington approximation for radiative transfer in the microwave frequencies. Journal of Geophysical Research 98: 2757-2765. Markus, Thorsten and Donald J. Cavalieri. 2008. Supplement AMSR-E Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document: Sea Ice Products. Greenbelt, MD, USA: Goddard Space Flight Center. (view pdf)

Markus, T. and D. Cavalieri. 1998. Snow depth distribution over sea ice in the Southern Ocean from satellite passive microwave data. Antarctic Sea Ice: Physical Processes, Interactions, and Variability. Antarctic Research Series 74:19-39. Washington, DC, USA: American Geophysical Union.

Markus, T., and D. Cavalieri. 2000. An enhancement of the NASA Team sea ice algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 38: 1387-1398. Matzler, C., R. O. Ramseier, and E. Svendsen. 1984. Polarization Effects in Sea-ice Signatures. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 9: 333-338.

Pearson, F. 1990. Map projections: Theory and applications. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida. 372 pages.

Snyder, J.P. 1987. Map projections - a working manual. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1395. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. 383 pages.

Snyder, J. P. 1982. Map Projections Used by the U.S. Geological Survey. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1532.


For more information regarding related publications, see the Research Using AMSR-E Data Web page.

Metadata Name and Version

Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 2004-02-18
Last DIF Revision Date: 2008-09-24

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