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Classification of Arctic Sea Ice Surface Types During the Melt Season in High-Resolution IceBridge Imagery
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  • Ellen Buckley,
  • Sinéad Farrell,
  • Kyle Duncan,
  • Laurence Connor,
  • John Kuhn,
  • RoseAnne Dominguez,
  • Sinéad Farrell
Ellen Buckley
University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland College Park

Corresponding Author:buckley@umd.edu

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Sinéad Farrell
NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, NCWCP
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Kyle Duncan
University of Maryland, University of Maryland
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Laurence Connor
NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry
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John Kuhn
NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry
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RoseAnne Dominguez
Universities Space Research Association Moffett Field, Universities Space Research Association Moffett Field
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Sinéad Farrell
NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, NCWCP
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Abstract

Melt ponds play an important role in the seasonal evolution of Arctic sea ice. During the melt season, snow atop the sea ice begins to metamorphose and melt, forming ponds on the ice. These ponds reduce the albedo of the surface, allowing for increased solar energy absorption and thus further melting of snow and ice. Analyzing the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of melt ponds helps us understand the sea ice processes that occur during the summer melt season. It has been shown that the inclusion of melt pond parameters in sea ice models increases the skill of predicting the summer sea ice minimum extent. Previous studies have used remote sensing imagery to characterize surface features and calculate melt pond statistics. Here we use new observations of melt ponds obtained by the Digital Mapping System (DMS) flown onboard NASA Operation IceBridge (OIB) during two Arctic summer melt campaigns which surveyed thousands of kilometers of sea ice and resulted in more than 45,000 images. One campaign was conducted in the Beaufort Sea (July 2016), and one in the Lincoln Sea and the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland (July 2017). Using these data we expect to advance our understanding of the differences and similarities between melt pond features on young, thin sea ice seen in the Beaufort Sea versus those on multi-year ice. We have developed a pixel-based classification scheme by considering the different RGB spectral values associated with each surface type. We identify four sea ice surface types (level ice, rubbled ice, open water, and melt ponds). The classification scheme enables the calculation of parameters including melt pond fraction, ice concentration, melt pond area, and melt pond dimensions. We compare results with data from the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), a laser altimeter also operated during these OIB missions. Given the extent over which the OIB data are available, regional information may be derived. Leveraging existing satellite data products, we examine whether the high-resolution airborne statistics are representative of the region and can be scaled up for comparison against satellite-derived parameters such as ice concentration and extent.