Date (Creation)

2018-03-22

Date (Revision)

2018-03-22

Date (Publication)

2018-03-22

Date (released)

2018-03-22

Edition

None

Unique resource identifier

https://doi.org/10.5285/ffd24dd7-e201-4a02-923f-038680bf7bb5

Codespace

doi

Unique resource identifier

GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01074

Codespace

https://data.bas.ac.uk/

Other citation details

Please cite this item as: Nicolas, J. (2018). Antarctic daily surface melt data estimated from SMMR, SSM/I, and SSMIS passive microwave observations, 1978-2016 (Version None) [Data set]. Polar Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council, UK. https://doi.org/10.5285/ffd24dd7-e201-4a02-923f-038680bf7bb5

Credit

No credit.

Status

Completed

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University	Nicolas, Julien		Author
Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University	Bromwich, David		Author
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency

As needed

Maintenance note

Completed

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords

• EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glaciers
• EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Ice Sheets
• EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Snow/Ice > Snow Melt
• EARTH SCIENCE > Spectral/Engineering > Microwave > Microwave Imagery

Theme

• Melt

• Passive microwave

• SMMR

• SSMI

Place

• Antarctica

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

• Elevation
• Meteorological geographical features

Access constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

no limitations to public access

Access constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

no limitations

Use constraints

License

Other constraints

This dataset is supplied under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Use constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

No restrictions apply.

Unique resource identifier

url

Codespace

url

Association Type

Cross reference

Unique resource identifier

url

Codespace

url

Association Type

Cross reference

Unique resource identifier

doi

Codespace

doi

Association Type

Cross reference

Spatial representation type

Text, table

Language

English

Character set

UTF8

Topic category

• Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
• Environment

Begin date

1978-10-25

End date

2017-02-22

Supplemental Information

It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data, and that the author be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk.

Title

European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry

Date (Publication)

2008-11-12

Cited responsible party

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
European Petroleum Survey Group		EPSGadministrator@iogp.org	Publisher

Unique resource identifier

urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031

Version

6.18.3

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Statement

Methodology:

Surface melt occurrence was estimated from brightness temperature (Tb) measurments from the following spaceborne sensors:

- Scanning Microwave Multichannel Radiometer (SMMR) onboard the Nimbus-7 satellite (1978-1987);

- Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) onboard successive satellites (F-8, F-11, and F13) from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP; 1987-2009);

- Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) onboard DMSP F-17 satellite (2006-present).

The data were obtained from the National Snow and Ice Data Center on its South-Hemisphere Equal-Area Scalable Earth (EASE) Grid with a nominal resolution of 25 km, corresponding to NSIDC datasets 0071 (Armstrong et al., 1994) and 0032 (Knowles et al., 2000).

To identify surface melt, we used horizontally polarized Tb data in the K-band (18 GHz for SMMR, 19 GHz for SSM/I-SSMIS). These data were available twice-daily (from the ascending and descending satellite passes). Data gaps were filled (only if they did not exceed one day) by linearly interpolating the data from the two adjacent days. This was particularly important for SMMR data, which are available only every other day. To ensure temporal consistency of the melt data across the various sensors, all SMMR and SSM/I data were calibrated with respect to SSMIS F-17 using the regression coefficients derived by Jezek et al. (1991), Abdalati et al. (1995), Stroeve et al. (1998), and Nicolas et al. (2017).

The melt detection algorithm is similar to the one used by Nicolas et al. (2017). For a given grid cell and a given day, melt was identified as soon as one of the two daily Tb observations exceeded a threshold value (Tb melt) defined as Tb melt = Tb ref + deltaT, where deltaT = 30 K and Tb ref is a reference temperature. The value of deltaT was based on the work from Tedesco (2009). Tb ref was calculated as the 12-month average from 1 April-31 March after filtering out all melt days, as in Torinesi et al. (2003).

The data are provided on a reduced 200 x 300 grid (referred to as 'es25r grid') that is a subset of NSIDC's original 721 x 721 25-km South-Hemisphere EASE Grid ( https://nsidc.org/data/ease). In our es25r grid, the first row corresponds to row 257 of the original grid and the first column corresponds to column 251 of the original grid. The resolution is 25 x 25 km.

The es25r grid covers the full range of longitudes (180°W to +180°E), and extends from the South Pole (90°S) to cover the Antarctic continent and ice shelves, with a Northern boundary at varying latitudes between 68.5°S and 53.8°S.

Data collection:

Instrumentation:

SMMR - Scanning Microwave Multichannel Radiometer

SSM/I - Special Sensor Microwave/Imager

SSMIS - Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder

Data quality:

Uncertainties could not be estimated for this dataset.

Metadata

File identifier

ffd24dd7-e201-4a02-923f-038680bf7bb5 XML

Metadata language

English

Character set

UTF8

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Hierarchy level name

dataset

Date stamp

2018-03-22

Metadata standard name

ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata

Metadata standard version

ISO 19115:2003(E)

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact