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Abstract:
. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite’s L-band (1.4GHz) measurements
have been used to retrieve snow thickness over thick sea ice in a previous study. Here we consider
brightness temperature simulations for 2.5–4.5m thick Arctic multi-year ice and compare the results of
the relatively simple emission model (M2013) used previously for the retrieval with simulations from a
more complex model (T2011) that combines a sea-ice version of the Microwave Emission Model for
Layered Snowpacks (MEMLS) with a thermodynamic model. We find that L-band brightness temperature
is mainly determined by ice temperature. In the M2013 model, ice temperature in turn is mainly
determined by surface temperature and snow thickness, and this dependence has been used previously
to explain the potential for a snow thickness retrieval. Our comparisons suggest that the M2013 retrieval
model may benefit from a more sophisticated thermodynamic calculation of the ice temperature or
from using independent temperature data (e.g. from 6GHz channels). In both models, horizontally
polarized brightness temperatures increase with snow thickness while holding surface temperature, ice
thickness and snow density near constant. The increase in the T2011 model is steeper than in M2013,
suggesting a higher sensitivity to snow thickness than found earlier.
