SeaWinds on QuikSCAT Arctic Sea Ice Age Classification (BYU/SCP)

SeaWinds on QuikSCAT Arctic Sea Ice Age Classification (BYU/SCP)
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Persistent IDPODAAC-QSSIA-BYU01
Short NameQSCAT_ARCTIC_SEAICE_AGE_CLASS_BYUSCP_V1
DescriptionThis SeaWinds on QuikSCAT scatterometer-derived Arctic sea ice classification dataset is provided as a service to the ocean and sea ice research communities on behalf of Dr. David Long at Brigham Young University (BYU) and the Scatterometer Climate Record Pathfinder (SCP). This dataset provides nominal 4.45 km (pixel resolution at reference latitude 70 N) gridded fields that classify First-Year (FY) and Multi-Year (MY) sea ice using SeaWinds on QuikSCAT scatterometer observations on a daily basis from 20 June 2002 through 23 November 2009. It is unique from other sea ice classification datasets primarily due to its utilization of passive microwave AMSR-E data to provide the initial ocean/ice masking edge and the use of a seasonal threshold for FY and MY sea ice classification from only SeaWinds data.The dataset is derived from daily gridded QuikSCAT vertically polarized (V-pol) egg backscatter data from the SCP, which is made available at the PO.DAAC: http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/QUIKSCAT_BYU_L3_OW_SIGMA0_ENHANCED . A seasonally varying threshold was derived by Swan and Long (2012) and used to discriminate between FY and MY sea ice based on QuikSCAT V-pol egg backscatter. The sea ice mask was derived by applying threshold constraints to the SCP AMSR-E 6 GHz images, which are made available by the BYU SCP: http://www.scp.byu.edu/data/AMSRE/SIR/AMSRE_sir.html . The data is provided in a CF-compliant, netCDF version 3 format. Further details on the algorithms and validation are described in further detail by Swan and Long (2012). The dataset, software readers and user guide documentation may all be accessed here: ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/quikscat/preview/L3/byu_scp/sea_ice_age/arctic/ . For more information on the QuikSCAT platform and mission, please visit http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/OceanWind/QuikSCAT .
Journal ReferenceA.M. Swan and D.G. Long, 2012: Multi-year Arctic sea ice classification using QuikSCAT. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Rem. Sens., Vol. 50, No. 9, pp. 3317-3326. doi: 10.1109/LGRS.2011.2180505
Dataset TypePREVIEW
MeasurementOceans > Sea Ice > Sea Ice Age
Processing Level3
CoverageRegion: Arctic
Northernmost Latitude: 90 degrees
Southernmost Latitude: 47.5 degrees
Westernmost Longitude: -180 degrees
Easternmost Longitude: 180 degrees
Time Span: 2002-Jun-19 to 2009-Nov-23
ResolutionSpatial Resolution: 0.04 degrees (Latitude) x 0.04 degrees (Longitude)
Temporal Resolution: Daily
ProjectionType: Gridded
Detail: Polar Stereographic
Ellipsoid: WGS-84
Latency-
Platform/Sensor
QUIKSCAT
Platform
Name: QUIKSCAT (QUIKSCAT)
Orbit Period: 100.93 minutes
Inclination Angle: 98.6 degrees
Ascending Node: 1999-Jul-18 23:04:49
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SEAWINDS
SENSOR
Name: SeaWinds Scatterometer (SEAWINDS)
Swath Width: 1800 km
Description: SeaWinds is a Ku-band (13.4 GHz) Scatterometer which features a single circular scanning dish antenna to provide pencil-beam measurements, as opposed to the common fan beam design as seen with other spaceborne scatterometers. The pencil-beam design has several key advantages over the more common fan beam design: higher signal-to-noise ratio, smaller size, and superior coverage. The SeaWinds single antenna utilizes twin offset feeds, thus providing two pencil-beam footprint paths with an elliptical sampling footprint of approximately 25 km (in azimuth) by 37 km (in look/range direction); these pencil beams have opposing polarizations (i.e., vertical and horizontal), thus achieving dual-polarization. The SeaWinds instrument provides a full 1800 km-wide swath coverage (including the nadir region), which allows for a nominal daily measurement coverage of 90% over the ice-free oceans.

ProjectResearch Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES)
Data ProviderCreator: David Long
Release Place: PO.DAAC
Release Date: 2012-Dec-31
Resource: http://www.scp.byu.edu/data/Quikscat/iceage/Quikscat_iceage.html
Keyword(s)amsr-e, sea ice, sea ice data, ice data, multi-year sea ice, arctic, ocean ice, seawinds, quikscat, scatterometer, polar, stereographic, gridded, scp
Questions related to this dataset? Contact podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov