The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
TC
Articles | Volume 18, issue 5
Articles | Volume 18, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2473-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2473-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 5
Research article
 | 
17 May 2024
Research article |  | 17 May 2024

Estimating the uncertainty of sea-ice area and sea-ice extent from satellite retrievals

Andreas Wernecke, Dirk Notz, Stefan Kern, and Thomas Lavergne

Data sets

ESA Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Sea Ice Concentration Climate Data Record from the AMSR-E and AMSR-2 instruments at 50km grid spacing, version 2.1 L. Toudal Pedersen et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/5f75fcb0c58740d99b07953797bc041e

Model code and software

Script to create MC ensemble to represent uncertainties in ESA CCI SIC dataset Andreas Wernecke https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7244321

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Short summary
The total Arctic sea-ice area (SIA), which is an important climate indicator, is routinely monitored with the help of satellite measurements. Uncertainties in observations of sea-ice concentration (SIC) partly cancel out when summed up to the total SIA, but the degree to which this is happening has been unclear. Here we find that the uncertainty daily SIA estimates, based on uncertainties in SIC, are about 300 000 km2. The 2002 to 2017 September decline in SIA is approx. 105 000 ± 9000 km2 a−1.
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