Melt Detection Over Greenland Using Smap Radiometer Observations

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2021-02-17

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

S. Mousavi et al., "Melt Detection Over Greenland Using Smap Radiometer Observations," IGARSS 2020 - 2020 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Waikoloa, HI, USA, 2020, pp. 2972-2974, doi: 10.1109/IGARSS39084.2020.9323626.

Rights

This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

Subjects

Abstract

Microwave measurements have been previously used to detect melt events due to their sensitivity to the presence of liquid water in snow. Since NASA's SMAP mission offers a valuable set of low frequency radiometer measurements, SMAP measurements have been used as a tool to detect melt events. SMAP's L-band radiometer also covers virtually the entire Greenland ice sheet twice daily. The overpasses center on morning and evening hours as the satellite is on a 6AM/6PM equator-crossing orbit, and the spatial resolution of the instrument is about 40 km. In this paper, the response of L-band measurements to surface melting of the ice sheet from 2015 through 2019 melt seasons is investigated. It is shown that the Greenland ice sheet experienced an unusually strong melt event at the end of July 2019, which extended the melt area across much of dry snow zone of the ice sheet over a period of two days.