Airborne L-band radiometer mapping of the dome-C area in Antarctica

Niels Skou; Steen Savstrup Kristensen; Sten Schmidl Søbjærg; Jan E. Balling

doi:10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2425039

Airborne L-band radiometer mapping of the dome-C area in Antarctica

Niels Skou, Steen Savstrup Kristensen, Sten Schmidl Søbjærg, Jan E. Balling

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

A 350 km × 350 km area near the Concordia station on the high plateau of Dome-C in Antarctica has been mapped by an airborne L-band radiometer system. The area was expected to display a rather uniform brightness temperature (TB) close to the yearly mean temperature-well suited for calibration checks for spaceborne instruments like SMOS, Aquarius, and SMAP. The measured TBs show unexpected variations like 8-K variation over 240 km on an east-west profile through Concordia, and in certain local cases, a slope of about 0.7 K/km. Comparing the measured TB map with bottom topography reveals a convincing correlation. Simulations show that variations in bedrock topography can indeed modulate the TB appropriately to explain the observed variations. It is concluded that use of the Dome-C area for calibration check of spaceborne radiometers is indeed viable, but with caution-especially when comparing instruments with different spatial resolutions.

Original language	English
Journal	I E E E Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
Volume	8
Issue number	7
Pages (from-to)	3656-3664
ISSN	1939-1404
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2425039
Publication status	Published - 2015

Keywords

Antarctica
L-band radiometer
Radiometer

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title = "Airborne L-band radiometer mapping of the dome-C area in Antarctica",

abstract = "A 350 km × 350 km area near the Concordia station on the high plateau of Dome-C in Antarctica has been mapped by an airborne L-band radiometer system. The area was expected to display a rather uniform brightness temperature (TB) close to the yearly mean temperature-well suited for calibration checks for spaceborne instruments like SMOS, Aquarius, and SMAP. The measured TBs show unexpected variations like 8-K variation over 240 km on an east-west profile through Concordia, and in certain local cases, a slope of about 0.7 K/km. Comparing the measured TB map with bottom topography reveals a convincing correlation. Simulations show that variations in bedrock topography can indeed modulate the TB appropriately to explain the observed variations. It is concluded that use of the Dome-C area for calibration check of spaceborne radiometers is indeed viable, but with caution-especially when comparing instruments with different spatial resolutions.",

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AU - Skou, Niels

AU - Kristensen, Steen Savstrup

AU - Søbjærg, Sten Schmidl

AU - Balling, Jan E.

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - A 350 km × 350 km area near the Concordia station on the high plateau of Dome-C in Antarctica has been mapped by an airborne L-band radiometer system. The area was expected to display a rather uniform brightness temperature (TB) close to the yearly mean temperature-well suited for calibration checks for spaceborne instruments like SMOS, Aquarius, and SMAP. The measured TBs show unexpected variations like 8-K variation over 240 km on an east-west profile through Concordia, and in certain local cases, a slope of about 0.7 K/km. Comparing the measured TB map with bottom topography reveals a convincing correlation. Simulations show that variations in bedrock topography can indeed modulate the TB appropriately to explain the observed variations. It is concluded that use of the Dome-C area for calibration check of spaceborne radiometers is indeed viable, but with caution-especially when comparing instruments with different spatial resolutions.

AB - A 350 km × 350 km area near the Concordia station on the high plateau of Dome-C in Antarctica has been mapped by an airborne L-band radiometer system. The area was expected to display a rather uniform brightness temperature (TB) close to the yearly mean temperature-well suited for calibration checks for spaceborne instruments like SMOS, Aquarius, and SMAP. The measured TBs show unexpected variations like 8-K variation over 240 km on an east-west profile through Concordia, and in certain local cases, a slope of about 0.7 K/km. Comparing the measured TB map with bottom topography reveals a convincing correlation. Simulations show that variations in bedrock topography can indeed modulate the TB appropriately to explain the observed variations. It is concluded that use of the Dome-C area for calibration check of spaceborne radiometers is indeed viable, but with caution-especially when comparing instruments with different spatial resolutions.

KW - Antarctica

KW - L-band radiometer

KW - Radiometer

U2 - 10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2425039

DO - 10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2425039

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1939-1404

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JO - I E E E Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

JF - I E E E Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

IS - 7

ER -

Airborne L-band radiometer mapping of the dome-C area in Antarctica

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Keywords

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