ANTARCTIC SEA-ICE THICKNESS RETRIEVAL, POSSIBLE LIMITATIONS, UNCERTAINTIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

摘要

The warming trend and significant loss of ice in the West Antarctic Peninsula requires international collaboration in advanced observations, validation of the Sea Ice Thickness (SIT) and uncertainties analysis for deriving validated products of Climate Variables and improved model forecast. SIT is an indicator of: climate change, contributing to the outgoing heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere, deep ocean convections, the sea level and the thermodynamic ice growth. The airborne remote-sensing data from the NASA Ice Bridge program provide unique opportunities to validate the sea-ice properties derived from satellite data in Antarctica and answer fundamental questions of feedbacks affecting SIT distribution in this region. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the available sea-ice products in Antarctica, provide recommendations for updated satellite products and analyze the uncertainties of the retrieved sea-ice thickness from radar altimeter, considering the factors affecting sea-ice distribution and thickness.