Year-round Arctic sea ice thickness from CryoSat-2 Baseline-D Level 1b observations 2010-2020

This dataset presents biweekly gridded sea ice thickness and uncertainty for the Arctic derived from the European Space Agency''s satellite CryoSat-2. An associated ''developer''s product'' also includes intermediate parameters used or output in the sea ice thickness processing chain. Data are provided as biweekly grids with a resolution of 80 km, mapped onto a Northern Polar Stereographic Grid, covering the Arctic region north of 50 degrees latitude, for all months of the year between October 2010 and July 2020.

CryoSat-2 Level 1b Baseline-D observed radar waveforms have been retracked using two different approaches, one for the ''cold season'' months of October-April and the second for ''melting season'' months of May-September. The cold season retracking algorithm uses a numerical model for the SAR altimeter backscattered echo from snow-covered sea ice presented in Landy et al. (2019), which offers a physical treatment of the effect of ice surface roughness on retracked ice and ocean elevations. The method for optimizing echo model fits to observed CryoSat-2 waveforms, retracking waveforms, classifying returns, and deriving sea ice radar freeboard are detailed in Landy et al. (2020). The melting season retracking algorithm uses the SAMOSA+ analytical echo model with optimization to observed CryoSat-2 waveforms through the SARvatore (SAR Versatile Altimetric Toolkit for Ocean Research and Exploitation) service available through ESA Grid Processing on Demand (GPOD). The method for classifying radar returns and deriving sea ice radar freeboard in the melting season are detailed in Dawson et al. (2022).

The melting season sea ice radar freeboards require a correction for an electromagnetic range bias, as described in Landy et al. (2022). After applying the correction, year-round freeboards are converted to sea ice thickness using auxiliary satellite observations of the sea ice concentration and type, as well as snow depth and density estimates from a Lagrangian snow evolution scheme: SnowModel-LG (Stroeve et al., 2020; Liston et al., 2020). The sea ice thickness uncertainties have been estimated based on methods described in Landy et al. (2022). NetCDF files contain detailed descriptions of each parameter.

Funding was provided by the NERC PRE-MELT grant NE/T000546/1 and the ESA Living Planet Fellowship Arctic-SummIT grant ESA/4000125582/18/I-NS.

Alternate title: Polar Data Centre (PDC) record GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01613

Date (Publication): 2022-09-26

Citation identifier: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id= / GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01613

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Antarctic Survey		pdc@bas.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre	Landy, J., & Dawson, G.	pdc@bas.ac.uk	Originator

Maintenance and update frequency: Unknown

Keywords

NDGO0001

NERC OAI Harvesting

NERC_DDC

GCMD Parameter Valids

EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Ice Depth/Thickness
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Ice Extent
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Ice Growth/Melt
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Ice Roughness
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Ice Types
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Leads
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Sea Ice Concentration
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Snow Depth
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Sea Ice > Snow Melt
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Ice Depth/Thickness
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Ice Extent
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Ice Growth/Melt
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Ice Roughness
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Ice Types
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Leads
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Sea Ice Concentration
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Snow Depth
EARTH SCIENCE > Oceans > Sea Ice > Snow Melt

BAS Free-text keywords

Arctic
CryoSat-2
sea ice
sea ice freeboard
sea ice thickness

Use limitation: Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/.

Please cite the indicated publications if using this dataset.

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/.

Please cite the indicated publications if using this dataset.

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
Elevation
Geoscientific information
Oceans

Begin date: 2010-10-01

End date: 2020-07-31

Reference system identifier: OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326

Distribution format

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Polar Data Centre - British Antarctic Survey		pdc@bas.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
http		GET DATA

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Domain consistency

Measure identification: INSPIRE / Conformity_001

Conformance result

Title: INSPIRE Data Specification on unknown theme Guidelines

Date

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Pass: No

Statement: NetCDF files were produced from the final gridded satellite observations and contain all associated metadata, or details about auxiliary datasets used in the processor. No smoothing or averaging was performed on the 80-km gridded sea ice thickness data. NetCDF files contain detailed descriptions of each derived parameter, both in the main sea ice thickness and developer''s products.