Polar Remote SensingPolar Remote Sensing

Presented by Beth CaissiePresented by Beth Caissie

Remote Sensing• Observing something without

being able to physically “see” or touch it

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/industry/esa_canada.asp

http://www.blogut.ca/2007/09/

Muir Glacier

1941, William Field

2004, Bruce Molnia

http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/repeat_photography.html

From the Glacier photograph collection. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology.

1909, Ulysses S. Grant

McCarty Glacier

2004, Bruce Molnia

From the Glacier photograph collection. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology.

http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/repeat_photography.html

Geostationary Satellite

Maintains its position over a particular location as the Earth rotates beneath it

Polar Orbiting Satellites

Near Polar Orbiting• Each satellite

passes near the poles ~14 times daily

• Multiple satellites: each location on Earth is imaged 4 times per day

• Polar regions are imaged much more often

Daily Landsat tracks across

Antarctica

Polar Remote Sensing via satellites• Glaciers• Snow Cover• Lake Ice • Sea Ice• Permafrost• Productivity• Surface

temperature• Volcanoes• Aurora Activity• And more…

Historic calving front locations (in grey), 1851 through 1964, compiled by Anker Weidick and Ole Bennike. Recent calving front locations (in color), 2001 through 2006, derived from Landsat satellite imagery.

Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003395/index.htmlhttp://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003395/index.html

Data derived from Sea Ice Index data set. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center. http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20070917animation.mov

1979-2006 September 9, 2007

Arctic Summer Sea-Ice Extent

Arctic Summer Sea-Ice Extent

http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

SSM/I Data:

• Special Sensor Microwave/ Imager, operated by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program

• Not affected by clouds!

• Near polar orbiting satellite

• Continuous record since 1979

• Very coarse resolution:

• 25 x 25 km grid

white > 15% ice coverage

Sensing primary productivity

Alaska

Russia

Quicktime movie compiled by Karen Frey, Clark University

Greenland Ice Sheet Temperature and Sea Ice

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. The Next Generation Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC). http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003506/index.html

Volcanic Activity

July 12, 2008: Okmok Volcano erupts in Alaska (Umnak Island in the Aleutians)

Image by Kelly Reeves, courtesy of Alaska Airlines http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Okmok.php

Image by Cheryl Cameron, courtesy of AVO/ADGGS

http://www.osei.noaa.gov/iod.html

Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) image showing the extent of the SO2 cloud. 2040 to 2240 UTC on July 13, 2008. The large mass over the North Pacific is presumably from the large explosion on July 12. AVO Image

Volcanic Activity—Okmok