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2 Potential Uses of the Medea Data Set
Pages 11-20

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From page 11...
... The term "fiducials" refers to the fact that the classified images were to be kept "in trust" in classified archives, with the eventual goal of declassification and release to the broader scientific community for research purposes. In 1999, Medea scientists requested that the intelligence community begin collecting images of Arctic sea ice at four different locations in the Arctic Basin during the summer months (the melt season)
From page 12...
... Barrow – Barrow is the site of extensive real time monitoring of fast ice by investigators at the University of Alaska and elsewhere; imagery acquired here complements these and other in situ data. Some products have already been derived from these data sets, in particular statistics and maps of melt pond distributions in the Arctic, disseminated by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC, 2000; Fetterer et al., 2008)
From page 13...
... In particular, the images are useful for studying snow distribution and its relationship to surface topography, the initiation and development of meltwater ponds and their profound effect on the surface energy balance and the melting of ice in summer, the relationship of stress and strain rate and its reflection in the pattern of cracks and other discontinuities in the ice, lateral oblation, and thickness evolution. The LIDPs will help scientists better understand these specific physical processes, especially if used in conjunction with data from operational civil satellite systems.
From page 14...
... Sequential one-meter-resolution LIDPs will be capable both of measuring the kinematic shifts of ice floe assemblies and at the same time tracking the surface area of each individual piece of ice. Such observations will help explain the contribution of lateral melting to the loss of multiyear ice.
From page 15...
... does not have sufficient resolution and Landsat does not have sufficient spatial coverage. The Medea LIDP images will provide an unprecedented view of how the surface topography affects the initial formation and subsequent evolution of melt ponds and their effect on the albedo and hence the short-wave radiative energy balance.
From page 16...
... that observations from the ICESat laser altimeter can be interpreted to produce ice thickness distributions in numerous places within the Arctic Basin (Figure 2.4)
From page 17...
... The 1-meter resolution Medea LIDPs would be of significant benefit to the calculations of the mass balance of the ice cover. Melt Pond Recurrence An issue of importance for the thermodynamic modeling of multiyear ice is the question whether or not melt ponds have a tendency to recur in the same place in consecutive summers.
From page 18...
... The square shows the coverage of one SAR pixel. SOURCE: Figure courtesy of USGS National Civil Applications Program.
From page 19...
... , but this high-resolution imagery would be a tremendous help in further refining these efforts. One of the greatest values of the Arctic sea-ice imagery data set lies not only in its high resolution and image quality, but in the availability of imagery with very high repeat rates in all key regions.
From page 20...
... Because the LIDPs are the same scale as AMSR-E, they would be extremely useful in assessing the performance of AMSR-E (Image courtesy of Matt Smith, Information Technology & Systems Center, University of Alabama at Huntsville)


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