ESA SMOS+ Sea Ice
Working group Remote Sensing & Assimilation
ESA SMOS+ Sea Ice
The main challenges for further improvement of the SMOS retrieval are 1) to parameterize the effect of vertical gradients of ice salinity and temperature in the SMOS retrieval model, 2) to account for the effect of ice concentration at SMOS sub-pixel scale resolution, and 3) to assess the effect of surface roughness and other hitherto neglected parameters and noise sources. Improved parameterizations for the retrieval model will be developed and tested with the help of a high resolution 1D thermodynamic and radiative transfer model and with new validation data obtained from recent field campaigns. The improved SMOS retrievals will subsequently be used together with CryoSat-2 data, exploiting the different and complementary features of both satellites, to ultimately generate a consistent merged sea-ice and partially snow product. In this way a combined SMOS/CryoSat-2 data sea ice thickness product will be generated. Finally, we will assess the benefit of using this product for the initialization of the sea ice state in different ocean-ice and ocean-ice-atmosphere models.
Link: http://icdc.zmaw.de/l3c_smos_sit.html?&L=1
- Duration: 2014-2016
- Sponsor: ESA ESRIN