Arctic Ice Balance: A Diagnosis Using Satellite Microwave and Drifting Buoy Data

该项目的目标是描述海洋海冰覆盖的状态，并了解形成开放水域、第一年和多年海冰观测分布的物理过程。该项目将综合来自扫描多通道微波辐射计(SMMR)和特殊传感器微波/成像仪(SSM/I)的卫星微波数据，以及来自北极浮标计划数据集的冰漂和形变数据，以定量估计海冰质量收支和北极冰平衡。在北冰洋的尺度上，准永久海冰覆盖并不是均匀的，而是由各种类型的冰组成，这些类型的冰在年龄、厚度、盐度、表面粗糙度和积雪深度方面都不同。各种类型的冰还决定了表面辐射平衡以及热量和动量在大气和海洋之间转移的速率。因此，海冰复盖的性质成为极地气候中一个重要的地球物理变量。卫星微波数据携带有关冰类型和开阔水域的信息，而浮标数据提供关于表面温度以及冰运动和形变场的数据。组合数据集消除了微波信号中存在的模糊性，并为当前使用的冰厚度分布模型提供了一个超定的数据集。

The goal of this project is to describe the state of the oceanic sea ice cover and to understand the physical processes that combine to produce the observed distribution of open water, first-year, and multi-year sea ice. The project will integrate satellite-based microwave data from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) and the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I), and ice drift and deformation data from the Arctic Buoy Program data set, in a quantitative estimate of the sea ice mass budget and the arctic ice balance. On the scale of the Arctic Ocean, the quasi-permanent sea ice cover is not uniform, but rather is composed of a mixture of ice types which differ with respect to age, thickness, salinity, surface roughness, and snow depth. The various ice types also determine the surface radiation budget and the rates at which heat and momentum is transferred between the atmosphere and the ocean. The nature of the sea ice cover therefore becomes a significant geophysical variable in the polar climate. The satellite microwave data carries information about ice type, and open water areas, while the buoy data provides data on surface temperatures and ice motion and deformation fields. The combined data set removes ambiguities present in the microwave signatures and provides an overdetermined data set for presently used ice thickness distribution models.