Spring melt pond fraction in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago predicted from RADARSAT-2

Howell, Stephen E. L.; Scharien, Randall K.; Landy, Jack; Brady, Mike

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4675-2020

Articles | Volume 14, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4675-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4675-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 12

Research article

|

21 Dec 2020

Research article |

| 21 Dec 2020

Spring melt pond fraction in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago predicted from RADARSAT-2

Stephen E. L. Howell, Randall K. Scharien, Jack Landy, and Mike Brady

Data sets

Integrated Climate Data Center -- ICDC Universit\"at Hamburg https://icdc.cen.uni-hamburg.de/

Short summary

Melt ponds form on the surface of Arctic sea ice during spring and have been shown to exert a strong influence on summer sea ice area. Here, we use RADARSAT-2 satellite imagery to estimate the predicted peak spring melt pond fraction in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from 2009–2018. Our results show that RADARSAT-2 estimates of peak melt pond fraction can be used to provide predictive information about summer sea ice area within certain regions of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.