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Sea ice thickness analyses for the Bohai Sea using MODIS thermal infrared imagery

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Abstract

Level ice thickness distribution pattern in the Bohai Sea in the winter of 2009–2010 was investigated in this paper using MODIS night-time thermal infrared imagery. The cloud cover in the imagery was masked out manually. Level ice thickness was calculated using MODIS ice surface temperature and an ice surface heat balance equation. Weather forcing data was from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analyses. The retrieved ice thickness agreed reasonable well with in situ observations from two off-shore oil platforms. The overall bias and the root mean square error of the MODIS ice thickness are–1.4 cm and 3.9 cm, respectively. The MODIS results under cold conditions (air temperature <–10°C) also agree with the estimated ice growth from Lebedev and Zubov models. The MODIS ice thickness is sensitive to the changes of the sea ice and air temperature, in particular when the sea ice is relatively thin. It is less sensitive to the wind speed. Our method is feasible for the Bohai Sea operational ice thickness analyses during cold freezing seasons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Satellite Ocean Application Service, State Oceanic Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Tao Zeng, Lijian Shi, Juhong Zou & Zhiping Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Space Ocean Remote Sensing and Application, State Oceanic Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Tao Zeng, Lijian Shi, Juhong Zou & Zhiping Zhang

  3. Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, FI-00101, Finland

    Makynen Marko & Bin Cheng

Authors
  1. Tao Zeng
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  2. Lijian Shi
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  3. Makynen Marko
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  4. Bin Cheng
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  5. Juhong Zou
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  6. Zhiping Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lijian Shi.

Additional information

Foundation item: The Chinese Polar Environment Comprehensive Investigation & Assessment Programs under contract No. CHINARE-02-04; the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of China under contract No. 2011DFA22260; the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences under contract No. 2014LDE009; the Public Science and Technology Research Funds Projects of Ocean under contract No.201105016; the Academy of Finland under contract No.259537; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 41428603.

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Zeng, T., Shi, L., Marko, M. et al. Sea ice thickness analyses for the Bohai Sea using MODIS thermal infrared imagery. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 35, 96–104 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-016-0908-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-016-0908-8

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