Sentinel-3 proves instrumental in tracking melting land ice

Sensors on Copernicus Sentinel-3 that measure snow and ice properties, have been used to develop a fast and accurate approach for monitoring the extent of land ice melt.

Surface melting contributes to a large amount of land ice melt in Greenland and the Arctic. A key mechanism in surface melting is changing surface reflectivity, or albedo – the fraction of light reflected off an ice sheet or snow-covered surface.

Bare ice and snow impurities, including those caused by biological effects, can reduce surface albedo, causing even more melting.

Sensors onboard the Sentinel-3 satellite of the Copernicus programme measure snow and ice optical properties (SICE) across Earth’s surface to track changes in surface albedo, with higher resolution (300 m) than earlier Earth observation satellites.

In the ESA-funded SICE project, these spaceborne optical data were used to measure snow grain size and snow and ice spectral and broadband albedo.

The researchers developed an automated open-source processing chain to determine daily albedo of glaciated areas.

The SICE software was successfully used to retrieve snow properties over Greenland and examine snow pollution in the interior of the Antarctic ice sheet.

The researchers showed this method can map snow cover at much finer resolutions than conventional passive microwave satellite remote sensing. They aim to develop the SICE toolchain further to track sea ice, as well as land ice.