Dataset
ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Southern hemisphere sea ice thickness from the Envisat satellite on a monthly grid (L3C), v3.0
Abstract
This dataset provides a Climate Data Record of Sea Ice Thickness for the southern hemisphere polar region, derived from the RA-2 (Radar Altimeter -2) instrument on the Envisat satellite at Level 3C (L3C). This product was generated in the context of the ESA Climate Change Initiative Programme (ESA CCI) by the Sea Ice CCI (Sea_Ice_cci) project.
It provides monthly gridded sea ice thickness data on a Lambeth Azimuthal Equal Area Projection for the period October 2002 to March 2012. Note, the southern hemisphere sea ice thickness dataset is an experimental climate data record, as the algorithm does not properly consider the impact of the complex snow morphology in the freeboard retrieval. Sea ice thickness is provided for all months but needs to be considered biased high in areas with high snow depth and during the southern summer months. Please consult the Product User Guide (PUG) for more information.
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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| Access rules: |
Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/esacci_seaice_terms_and_conditions.pdf When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
Data were processed by the ESA CCI Sea Ice project team and were supplied to CEDA in the context of the ESA CCI Open Data Portal Project |
| Data Quality: |
See the Sea Ice CCI documentation for information on data quality.
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| File Format: |
The data are in netCDF format.
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Process overview
Instrument/Platform pairings
| Radar Altimeter 2 (RA-2) | Deployed on: Envisat |
Computation Element: 1
| Title | Computation for ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Retrieval of sea-ice thickness from radar altimetry data |
| Abstract | The method used to extract sea-ice thickness from radar altimetry data is based on the pioneering work of Peacock and Laxon, 2004; Laxon et al., 2003 for the ERS-2 mission. The method involves separating the radar echoes returning from the ice floes from those returning from the sea surface in the leads between the floes. This step of a surface-type classification is crucial and allows for a separate determination of the ice floe and sea-surface heights. The freeboard that is the elevation of the ice upper side (or ice/snow interface) above the sea level can then be computed by deducting the interpolated sea-surface height at the floe location from the height of the floe. Sea-ice thickness can then be calculated from the sea-ice freeboard with the additional information of the snow load. |
| Input Description | None |
| Output Description | None |
| Software Reference | None |
| Output Description | None |
No variables found.
Temporal Range
2002-10-01T00:00:00
2012-03-31T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
-16.0000° |
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-180.0000° |
180.0000° |
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-90.0000° |