The cryosphere is a key research interest of mine and something which I am considering for my dissertation. Therefore, I was interested to study the intersection of these two diverse but complimentary topics. My attention was bought to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre. This organisation noted that Antarctic sea ice declined in the Ross and Weddell Seas at an accelerated rate in comparison to the 1981-2010 average throughout December which has continued into January 2019 (Gautier, 2019). The images were collected from a Sea Ice Index developed by NASA using passive microwave data. Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) was also used on NASA’s Terra satellite to monitoring the crysosphere which captured warmer than average land temperatures for April 2016 in Greenland which could have huge ramifications if a large quantity of freshwater is released into the North Atlantic.
A key feature of cryosphere observation is the overwhelming preference of microwave radiation – why? Drawing from information again from NSIDC, I learnt that objects emit low-level microwave energy as well as infrared, with the former not being wholly linked to the temperature of an object. In comparison, the amount of microwave radiation emitted is determined by physical properties including its chemistry. Henceforth, the chemistry and physical structure of ice emits more microwave energy from the surrounding sea which produces a different spectral signature, which would not be so distinctive if temperature was solely used (National Snow and Ice Data Centre, unknown).
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