Characteristics of arctic ocean ice determined from SMMR data for 1979: Case studies in the seasonal sea ice zone

Sea ice data derived from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer are examined for sections of the Arctic Ocean during early summer 1979. The temporary appearance of spuriously high multiyear ice fractions in the seasonal ice zones of the Kara and Barents Seas is a result of surface melt phenomena and the relative responses of the different channels to these effects. These spurious signatures can provide early identification of melt onset and additional information on surface characteristics.     

Selection of microwave bands for global snow detection

Microwave radiometers and scatterometers as all-weather and day-and-night sensors are excellent tools for the reliable, regular observation of dynamic features of the surface of the earth. The various hydrologic states, the development of the metamorphism, the water equivalent and other parameters of the snow cover cause a very distinct spectral behaviour of the microwave emission and backscattering.The results of a long-term ground-based investigation of the microwave radiation properties along with classical determinations of the snow parameters during five seasons on an alpine test area allow the definition of an optimum package of microwave passive and active sensors for the global monitoring of the snow cover.Additionally it has been demonstrated that the utilization of the Nimbus-7 Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer data permit the production of large scale maps of the extent of dry snow, the estimated water equivalent of dry snow and the areas changing between frozen and wet snow.     

Applications of satellite microwave radiometry

Data from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) onboard Nimbus-7 were applied to (a) retrieval of the water equivalent of snow cover, (b) discrimination of forest types and land-cover categories, (c) determination of the near-surface wind speed in the Baltic Sea, and (d) determination of sea-ice concentration in the Baltic Sea. The data set covers parts of years 1978 through 1982.     

Ozone reference models for CIRA

The ozone reference model which is to be incorporated in the COSPAR International Reference Atmosphere (CIRA) is described and compared with other measurements of the Earth's ozone distribution. Ozone vertical structure models from approximately 25 to 90 km are provided combining data from five recent satellite experiments (Nimbus-7 LIMS, Nimbus-7 SBUV, AE-2 SAGE, Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME) UVS, and SME IR). The results include the latest improvements in the SBUV algorithms using the most recent estimates of ozone cross sections. Also, the latest refinements in SME algorithms are incorporated. These algorithm improvements have improved agreement between the satellite data sets. Standard deviations are provided of monthly zonal means, and an estimate of the interannual variability is given. The models based on satallite data compare well with the Krueger and Minzner mid-latitude model incorporated into the U. S. Standard Atmosphere which is based on rocket and balloon measurements. Other comparisons are shown with Umkehr and more recent balloon data. Models are also provided of total columnar ozone reflecting recent improved estimates of ozone cross section. Information is provided on semiannual and annual variations. Other systematic variations including estimates of diurnal variations in the mesosphere will be included in the CIRA document.     

Analog environments for a Europa lander mission

This paper reviews the utility of analog environments in preparations for a Europa lander mission. Such analogs are useful in the demonstration and rehearsal of engineering functions such as sample acquisition from an icy surface, as well as in the exercise of the scientific protocols needed to identify organic, inorganic and possible biological impurities in ice. Particular attention is drawn to Antarctic and Arctic analog sites where progress in these latter areas has been significant in recent years.     

太阳活动、黑潮海温年季变化与长江中游旱涝灾害

本文采用太阳１０．７ｃｍ辐射流量（Ｆ１０．７）作为太阳活动指标，根据最近３０多年的太阳活动、西太平洋黑潮区海温和长江中游干支流地区雨量观测数据，分析了三者之间的关系，研究发现长江中游地区旱涝明显地受太阳活动和黑潮海温年季变化的共同控制．可根据某些特征，利用两年之前的太阳１０．７ｃｍ辐射流量和当年春季之前黑潮海温的观测数据，分析判断长江中游当年夏季是否发生旱涝灾害的趋势．     

The importance of charged aerosols in the polar mesosphere in connection with Noctilucent Clouds and Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes

A number of campaigns have been conducted in order to study Polar Mesosphere Summer Echos (PMSE) and Noctilucent Clouds (NLC) in the period 1991–1994. Several sounding rockets have been launched through these layers with measurements being performed on upleg as well as downleg. These include measurements of positive ions and electrons in both ram and wake positions, as well as measurements of charged aerosols in ram on upleg. In this paper we will review these measurements and make a preliminary classification of the data based upon the presence of PMSE and/or NLC. One of the mechanisms responsible for PMSE is the presence of neutral air turbulence in combination with a high Schmidt number. We will briefly discuss this type of echo using in situ rocket data. Differences and similarities of PMSE and NLC as observed both in the Arctic and the Antarctic will be discussed. Observations show that especially PMSE are much more frequent in the Arctic. This may be due to a difference in the water vapour content or the temperature at mesopause heights. Lack of data in the Antarctic makes it difficult to decide which of these two factors are the most important. More measurements, especially co-ordinated in situ and ground-based lidar and radar measurements, are needed to discuss the Arctic and Antarctic similarities and differences in further detail.     

Interannual variability of the zonal sea surface slope in the equatorial Atlantic during the 1990s

Altimetry data have proven themselves essential for the early detection, analysis and monitoring of large scale tropical anomalies associated with El Niño in the Pacific. Warm events in the Atlantic are much weaker than in the Pacific and are partially masked by the strong seasonal cycle. Satellite altimetric data permits one to estimate the zonal sea surface slope variations at the equator in the Atlantic with sufficient accuracy for resolving interannual sea surface slope variations. The altimetry-derived slope is here shown to detect Atlantic warm events. For all warm events, anomalies in sea surface slope tend to lead SST. In the mid-1990s’, the equatorial interannual variability is dominated by 17-month period events which exhibit the structure observed in local coupled ocean–atmosphere warm events (zonal wind stress weakening and zonal surface slope relaxation, warm SST, excess precipitation). The frequency of occurrence of these Atlantic warm events is seen to have increased during the mid-1990s.     

高纬度地区GPT2w模型的适应性分析

GPT2w模型是现有精度最高的天顶对流层模型,但是应用在高纬度地区时存在较大误差.为更好地保障卫星导航定位系统在高纬度地区的高精度应用,评定了GPT2w模型在高纬度地区的精度,获取天顶对流层湿延迟、干延迟和总延迟,探讨了GPT2w模型改正对精密单点定位的影响.试验结果表明: GPT2w模型在高纬度地区的精度为厘米级,优于其在中低纬度地区的精度;南北极地区天顶对流层呈现明显季节变化特征和区域一致性特征,夏季天顶对流层总延迟高于冬季,北极地区天顶对流层湿延迟明显高于南极地区,北极地区天顶对流层随季节的变化幅度大于南极地区.PPP试验结果表明,GPT2w模型能够有效改善定位精度,适应高纬度地区的高精度定位需求.      

A distant look at the cryosphere

Ninety nine per cent of all the fresh water on the surface of the Earth is in the form of ice. Observations from space have revealed more about the ice than about most other parts of the environment because at the dawn of the satellite era, less was known about it. The cryosphere includes all forms of naturally occurring ice but here we review what space science has done for knowledge of glaciers and ice sheets. Whereas in global terms the cryosphere exists as a response to climate, over large areas it controls climate. While imaging spacecraft systems have proved easiest to interpret, microwave sensors with poor spatial resolution are able to distinguish transient and stable surface features that are invisible to the eye. Imaging radars quite effectively describe sea ice, but precision altimetry is the only practicable method for monitoring changes in the total mass of ice on land.     

Study of long path VLF signal propagation characteristics as observed from Indian Antarctic station,Maitri

To examine the quality and propagation characteristics of the Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio waves in a very long propagation path, Indian Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata, participated in the 27th Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica during 2007–2008. One Stanford University made AWESOME VLF receiving system was installed at the Indian Antarctic station Maitri and about five weeks of data were recorded successfully from the Indian transmitter VTX and several other transmitting stations worldwide. The quality of the signal from the VTX transmitter was found to be very good, consistent and highly stable in day and night. The signal shows the evidences of the presence of the 24 h solar radiation in the Antarctic region during local summer. Here we report the both narrow band and broadband VLF observations from this site. The diurnal variations of VTX signal (18.2 kHz) are presented systematically for Antarctica path and also compared the same with the variations for a short propagation path (VTX-Kolkata). We compute the spatial distribution of the VTX signal along the VTX-Antarctica path using the most well-known LWPC model for an all-day and all-night propagation conditions. The calculated signal amplitudes corresponding to those conditions relatively corroborate the observations. We also present the attenuation rate of the dominant waveguide modes corresponding to those propagation conditions where the effects of the Antarctic polar ice on the attenuation of different propagating waveguide modes are visible.     

Detection of volcanic,CO2, and ENSO signals in surface air temperature

The Russian surface air temperature data set (Northern Hemisphere, gridded, monthly average, 1891–1981) is analyzed to separate signals from large volcanic eruptions, ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) events, and signals in conjunction with hemispheric temperature changes. Characteristic patterns of zonal average temperature as a function of month and latitude as well as monthly average maps are produced for each forcing. The largest response to volcanic forcing appears at a lag of 2 and 3 years following volcanic eruptions. The zonal average response shows cooling at all latitudes and months, except in the Arctic in summer. The largest cooling is in the high latitudes in the winter. This agrees very well with energy balance model calculations of the response pattern to large volcanic eruptions, and can be explained by sea ice/thermal inertia and, to a lesser extent, snow/albedo feedbacks. The spatial pattern shows large areas of cooling at all longitudes. In response to ENSO oscillations the largest response is synchronous or with the temperature lagging ENSO oscillations by 6 months. The zonal average response is virtually zero, but the spatial patterns show large variations of opposite sign at different longitudes. Patterns produced by weighting temperature anomalies with hemispheric mean temperature indicate patterns to be expected following a CO₂ warming.     

Estimating sea level rise around Australia using a new approach to account for low frequency climate signals

Regional sea level studies help to identify the vulnerable areas to the sea level rise. This study investigates the impact of climate modes on sea level variations and trends around Australia using altimetry data, climate indices, and sea level records from tide gauge stations. Here, we show that the sea level variations are negatively correlated with climate indices to the north and west of Australia. The spectral analyses of the climate indices and tide gauge data suggest that a low frequency signal with a period of 11 years emerges during the mid 1980s. Since the 25-year length of the satellite altimetry record is yet too short to detect low frequency signals, their effect on the estimation of regional sea level trend is unknown. Therefore, we estimate the sea level trend with consideration of this signal and using a two-step method. All signals with periods shorter than 7.5 years are first removed from sea level time series and then the trend is estimated using the parametric model that includes the 11-year signal. The skill of the parametric model in explaining the variations in sea level anomaly validates the presence of the 11-year signal detected in the spectrograms of the tide gauge data and climate indices. The average sea level trend for the study area is estimated as 3.85 ± 0.15 mm/year.     

Analysis of the variability of temperature gradient in the ocean frontal zones based on satellite data

AVHRR MCSST data for the periods 1982–2000 (mean weekly data) were used to calculate mean gradient fields in the ocean for different periods of time. Three-month averaged sea surface temperature gradients (SSTG) and their mean seasonal variations have been studied for 25 points in the large-scale oceanic fronts zones. Major oceanic fronts in the Atlantic and Pacific have been identified and compared in literature. In the North Atlantic and Pacific, the areas under study were the North Polar Front and Subpolar Fronts. In the South Atlantic and Pacific we studied the region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and the fronts formed by this current, known as the South Polar Front, and the Subantarctic Front. SSTG were also calculated for El Niño (Southeast Pacific) and Benguela Current (Southeast Atlantic).     

Establishment of atmospheric weighted mean temperature model in the polar regions

Due to the special geographical location and extreme climate environment, the polar regions (Antarctic and Arctic) have an important impact on global climate change. Atmospheric weighted mean temperature (Tm) is a crucial parameter in the retrieval of precipitable water vapor (PWV) from the zenith wet delay (ZWD) of ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal propagation. In this paper, the correlation between weighted mean temperature and surface temperature (Ts) is studied firstly. It is shown that the correlation coefficients between Tm and Ts are 0.93 in the Antarctic and 0.94 in the Arctic. The linear regression Tm model and quadratic function Tm model of the Antarctic and the Arctic are established respectively using the radiosonde profiles of 12 stations in the Antarctic and 58 stations in the Arctic from 2008 to 2015. The accuracies of the linear regression Tm model, the quadratic function Tm model and GPT2w Tm model which is a state-of-the-art global Tm model are verified using the radiosonde profiles from 2016 to 2018 in the Antarctic and Arctic. Root Mean Square (RMS) errors of the linear regression Tm model, the quadratic function Tm model and GPT2w Tm model in the Antarctic are 3.07 K, 2.87 K and 4.32 K respectively, and those in the Arctic are 3.53 K, 3.38 K and 4.82 K, which indicates that the quadratic function Tm model has a higher accuracy compared to linear regression Tm model, and the accuracies of the two regional Tm models are better than that of GPT2w Tm model in the polar regions. In order to better evaluate the accuracy of Tm in the PWV retrieval, the PWV values of radiosondes are used for comparisons as the reference value. The RMS errors of PWV derived from the two Tm models are similar for 1.28 mm in the Antarctic and 1 mm in the Arctic respectively. In addition, the spatial and temporal variation characteristics of Tm are analyzed in the polar regions by spectral analysis of Tm data using fast Fourier transform. The results show that the Tm has obvious seasonality and annual periodicity in the polar regions, and the maximum difference between warm season and cold season is about 63 K. After comparing and analyzing the influences of latitude, longitude and elevation on the Tm in the polar regions, it is found that latitude and elevation have a greater influence on the Tm than the longitude. As the latitude and elevation increase, the Tm decreases, and vice versa in the polar regions.     

Hemispheric differences in the earth radiation budget derived from Nimbus-7 related to climate studies

Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data from Nimbus-7 over the period November 1978 – June 1980 has consistently shown strong hemispheric differences when analyzed over different temporal and spatial scales. Hemispheric variations in time latitude cross sections of net and emitted radiation were found to be caused by changes in the Earth-Sun distance and continental effects.Maps of annual range for the entire Earth calculated from monthly averages showed areas of high and low variability of the different ERB parameters. The ERB of these regional areas were examined and most of the variability was found to lay in the large amplitude of the annual solar cycle. Variations in the global annual cycle of albedo /1/ are studied with respect to differences in latitudinal averaged albedo. The anomaly in the annual cycle of global averaged albedo was found to be caused by tropical albedo changes.     

Synergistic use of multitemporal RAMP,ICESat and GPS to construct an accurate DEM of the Larsemann Hills region,Antarctica

An enhanced digital elevation model (DEM) of the Larsemann Hills region, east Antarctica, is constructed synergistically by using highly accurate ground-based GPS measurements, satellite-derived laser altimetry (GLAS/ICESat) and Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMPv2) DEM-based point elevation dataset. Our DEM has a vertical accuracy of about 1.5 times better than RAMPv2 DEM and seven times better than GLAS/ICESAT-based DEM. The accuracy is improved by validating the RAMPv2 DEM elevation by supplementing with GLAS/ICESat and DGPS survey data, when compared to that of DEM constructed by using GLAS/ICESat or RAMPv2 alone. With the use of accurate GPS data as ground control points reference elevations, the DEM extracted is much more accurate with least mean RMSE of 34.5 m than that constructed by using a combination of GLAS/ICESat and RAMPv2 as true reference. The newly constructed DEM 7 achieves highest accuracy with the least average elevation difference of 0.27 m calculated using 46 ground reference points. Available DEMs of Antarctic region generated by using radar altimetry and the Antarctic Digital Database indicate elevation variations in the range of 50–100 m, which necessitates the generation of local DEM and its validation by using ground truth. This is our first attempt of fusing multi-temporal, multi-sensor and multi-source elevation data to generate a DEM of any part of Antarctica, in order to address the ice elevation change to infer the ice mass balance. Our approach focuses on the strengths of each elevation data source to produce an accurate DEM.     

Microflora in the basal strata at Antarctic ice core above the Vostok lake.

The microbiological investigations of the Antarctic ice core at the Vostok station become especially important in connection with the discovery of an subglacial lake in this region. This lake is considered by the world-wide scientific community to be an important object for searching for relict forms of life on the Earth and also as a model for solving a number of problems of exobiology--for instance for development of methods to penetrate into underice sea at Europe--Jupiter's satellite. For the first time the Antarctic ice core samples were taken from the horizons which correspond to the basal zone (3534-3541 m) and to the accreation ice zone (3555-3611 m) above the subglacial lake Vostok. As a result of the microbiological investigations it was shown that the total number of microbial cells have been in the same range of quantities as at the upper, younger horizons and varied from 1.3 x 10(2) up to 9.6 x 10(2) cl/ml. Some periodicity in the cell concentration and in their morphological diversity was revealed along the core. The maximal number and the greatest morphological variety were detected at horizons with the depth of 3534, 3555 and 3595 m. A drop in the cell concentration two or three times as much was found in ice layers under each of the above mentioned horizons. The discovered stratification is apparently connected with the periodicity of the lake water interactions with the basal ice layer and obviously depends on the complex natural events which took place in the geological history of our planet.     

武昌低电离层LF观测的季节变化

通过分析武昌低电离层LF观测数据,得到了中低纬度低电离层电子密度剖面的季节变化特征及其与太阳天顶角周年变化的关系,给出LF相位周年振荡幅度的年际变化曲线．     

Multi- GNSS reflectometry performance evaluation for coastal sea level monitoring: A case study in Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctica is a continent that crucial for studying climate change and its progression across time, as well as analyzing and forecasting local and global change. In this environment, due to the challenges caused by sea-level rise, storm surges, and tsunamis, sustainability is a critical concern, particularly for coastal regions. As a result, the long-term observations that will be conducted in Antarctica are critical for monitoring the adverse impacts of climate change. In recent years, many monitoring approaches, both space, and ground-based are performed to monitor sea/ice level trends in space-based scientific investigations conducted in and around the region. In the study, based on one year of observations from the Palmer GNSS Station, the GNSS Reflectometry technique was used to measure the sea level on the Antarctic Peninsula (PALM). GNSS Station observations were analyzed with a Lomb-Scargle periodogram to monitor sea-level changes, and results were validated with data from a co-located tide gauge (TG). The results show that the correlation between GNSS-R sea-level changes and tidal sea-level changes is found as 0.91.