Snow cover characteristics and regime in the South Shetlands
(Maritime Antarctic) - SnowAntar
Funding organization:
European Space Agency - ESA
ESA Category - 1 Project (Proposal C1P.6202)
Period: December 2008 -
Host Institution
Centro de Estudos Geográficos da Universidade de Lisboa
Participating Institutions
Centro de Estudos Geográficos, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Departamento de Física, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Principal Investigator: Carla Mora
Team members: Gonçalo Vieira, Miguel Ramos
Abstract
Seasonal snow cover is one of the most important components of Earth's cryosphere and is a fundamental factor of the Global climate system, especially due to its influence on planetary albedo (Slaymaker and Kelly 2007). In the present proposal the study of snow is linked to permafrost, another Essential Climate Variable (ECV) as defined by GCOS (WMO/UNEP), and a key element of the Earth System where research efforts should focus.
In the Antarctic, very little is known about permafrost and its behavior. Permafrost monitoring and modeling in the South Shetland Islands has been conducted by our team in the framework of the projects PERMAMODEL, PERMADRILL and PERMANTAR, integrated in the International Polar Year Core Projects ANTPAS and TSP (i.e. Hauck et al. 2007, Ramos et al. 2007, Vieira et al. 2008, Ramos and Vieira, 2009). Currently, the projects PERMANTAR-2 and PERMAPLANET follow the same research line extending the research area to the Northern Antarctic Peninsula.
The purpose of SNOWANTAR is to analyze imagery from SAR (ERS), ASAR (Envisat) and PALSAR (Alos) sensors in a series of 10 years of data in order to study the snow cover distribution in the South Shetlands. The processed products requested are medium resolution images (IMM, WSW) and precision images (ASA_IMP, ASA_APP and PALSAR-fbd). The study period is from 2000 to 2010 in the region from the South Shetlands archipelago to Brabant and Anvers Islands (Antarctic Peninsula, 61º30’S and 65ºS and the longitude of 56ºW and 65ºW).
The project is organized in 2 tasks: i) Task 1 consists in the development of a snow mapping algorithm using the ground truth data from 2009 and 2010; ii) Task 2 consists in the application of the algorithm to produce maps of snow cover for the period 2000 to 2008.
Validation of the results obtained from the microwave imagery will be done using ground truth data. This derives from time-lapse cameras, ultra-sonic sensors of snow thickness and poles with snow temperature mini-loggers that we have installed in the field in 2008 and 2009. This data will be used for calibration of the results.
Snow cover maps will be produced for integration in permafrost modeling in the framework of ongoing research projects and also for comparison with re-analysis data (ERA-Interim).
European Space Agency - ESA
ESA Category - 1 Project (Proposal C1P.6202)
Period: December 2008 -
Host Institution
Centro de Estudos Geográficos da Universidade de Lisboa
Participating Institutions
Centro de Estudos Geográficos, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Departamento de Física, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Principal Investigator: Carla Mora
Team members: Gonçalo Vieira, Miguel Ramos
Abstract
Seasonal snow cover is one of the most important components of Earth's cryosphere and is a fundamental factor of the Global climate system, especially due to its influence on planetary albedo (Slaymaker and Kelly 2007). In the present proposal the study of snow is linked to permafrost, another Essential Climate Variable (ECV) as defined by GCOS (WMO/UNEP), and a key element of the Earth System where research efforts should focus.
In the Antarctic, very little is known about permafrost and its behavior. Permafrost monitoring and modeling in the South Shetland Islands has been conducted by our team in the framework of the projects PERMAMODEL, PERMADRILL and PERMANTAR, integrated in the International Polar Year Core Projects ANTPAS and TSP (i.e. Hauck et al. 2007, Ramos et al. 2007, Vieira et al. 2008, Ramos and Vieira, 2009). Currently, the projects PERMANTAR-2 and PERMAPLANET follow the same research line extending the research area to the Northern Antarctic Peninsula.
The purpose of SNOWANTAR is to analyze imagery from SAR (ERS), ASAR (Envisat) and PALSAR (Alos) sensors in a series of 10 years of data in order to study the snow cover distribution in the South Shetlands. The processed products requested are medium resolution images (IMM, WSW) and precision images (ASA_IMP, ASA_APP and PALSAR-fbd). The study period is from 2000 to 2010 in the region from the South Shetlands archipelago to Brabant and Anvers Islands (Antarctic Peninsula, 61º30’S and 65ºS and the longitude of 56ºW and 65ºW).
The project is organized in 2 tasks: i) Task 1 consists in the development of a snow mapping algorithm using the ground truth data from 2009 and 2010; ii) Task 2 consists in the application of the algorithm to produce maps of snow cover for the period 2000 to 2008.
Validation of the results obtained from the microwave imagery will be done using ground truth data. This derives from time-lapse cameras, ultra-sonic sensors of snow thickness and poles with snow temperature mini-loggers that we have installed in the field in 2008 and 2009. This data will be used for calibration of the results.
Snow cover maps will be produced for integration in permafrost modeling in the framework of ongoing research projects and also for comparison with re-analysis data (ERA-Interim).
