The modelling of sea ice melt-water ponds for the High Arctic using an airborne line scan camera, and applied to the satellite special sensor microwave/imager (SSM/I)

Melt-water ponds on sea ice in the Northeast Water Polynya (77-82 degrees N, 1-18 degrees W) were mapped using a line scan camera (LSC) mounted on a helicopter. Passive microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) were employed to analyse the temporal trend of radiances of shorefast ice for 1993 and sea ice during sixteen flights of the LSC (June-July). A simple, linear algorithm tailored to accommodate the summer ice regime, was developed. The LSC measurements of ice (50.9 +/- 12.5%), water and melt-water pond fractions compared very well with the SSM/I derived mean ice concentrations (50.9 +/- 12.8%). The comparison resulted in a correlation coefficient of 0.953. Combining the LSC melt-water pond fraction data with other data available from the literature provided the basis to construct a second degree polynomial function of a melt-water empirical model to correct the under estimation of SSM/I derived sea ice concentration due to the effect of melt-water ponds.