August 7, 2025Open Access

Brief communication: Estimating Antarctic surface melt rates using passive microwave data calibrated with weather station observations

Key Points

Melt rates in Antarctica were estimated using microwave data, achieving a resolution of 6.25 km over nine years.
Data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder demonstrated a correlation with Automatic Weather Station melt estimates (R2 = 0.83).
The empirical model developed establishes a relationship between annual melt days and water-equivalent melt volume.
Findings reveal that microwave estimates are about 15% lower in total melt volume compared to RACMO outputs, suggesting important implications for climate models.

Abstract

Abstract. We present a dataset of Antarctic annual surface melt rates (6.25 km resolution, 2012–2021) from 19 GHz Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS). First, melt occurrence is detected via thresholds for brightness temperature, diurnal variation, and winter anomaly, calibrated with Automatic Weather Station (AWS) data. Second, AWS-driven surface energy balance modeling yields an empirical relation between annual melt days and water-equivalent melt volume. SSMIS-derived melt volumes show good agreement with AWS-based melt estimates (R2 = 0.83). Compared to QuikSCAT and RACMO2.4 outputs, SSMIS captures a similar spatial melt pattern but estimates a total melt volume approximately 15 % lower than RACMO, on the decadal average.

Brief communication: Estimating Antarctic surface melt rates using passive microwave data calibrated with weather station observations

Key Points

Abstract

Cite This Study

Also Consider

Also Consider