Simulations of the snow covered sea ice surface temperature and microwave effective temperature

Abstract

The snow surface on thick multiyear sea ice in winter is on average colder than the air because of the negative radiation balance. Beneath the snow surface there is a strong temperature gradient in winter with increasing temperatures towards the ice—water interface temperature at the freezing point around –1.8 ◦C. The sea ice surface temperature and the thermal microwave brightness temperature were simulated using a combination of thermodynamic and microwave emission models.

The simulations indicate that the physical snow—ice interface temperature or alternatively the 6 GHz effective temperature have a good correlation with the effective temperature at the temperature sounding channels near 50 GHz. The complete correlation matrix based on the simulations for physical and effective temperatures is given.

The physical snow—ice interface temperature is related to the brightness temperature at 6 GHz vertical polarization as expected. However, the emissivity factor normally used when converting brightness temperature to the ice temperature is dependent on the ice temperature. The simulations indicate that a simple model may be used to derive the snow-ice interface temperature from satellite AMSR 6 GHz measurements.