Preliminary on-ice remote sensing measurements during the MOSAiC expedition

Several different remote sensing instruments were deployed on the sea ice floe next to RV Polarstern during the MOSAiC expedition (mosaic-expedition.org). Here, preliminary data from nine instruments for two observation periods (Nov 2019 and Sep 2020) is provided. Initial calibration was performed but data might change for the final datasets. Outliers were filtered and some time series smoothed. Data from Figure 10 in Nicolaus et al. (2021), "Overview of the MOSAiC expedition – Snow and Sea Ice", Elementa:

Results from co-located active and passive remote sensing instruments (Table 2) looking at similar ice and snow conditions (Figure S4). (left) Measurements during a warming and storm event in November 2019 and (right) during a melting event in September 2020. (A) Air temperature and wind speed from the Polarstern weather station and snow surface temperature from the IR camera at the Remote Sensing Site (dashed blue line shows time periods with potential icing on the lens). (B) Radar backscatter at VV polarization from 2145 microwave scatterometers L-SCAT at 1.3 GHz and Ku/Ka-radar at 15 and 35 GHz (note the different y-scales). (C) Brightness temperature at V polarization from microwave radiometers: ELBARA at 1.4 GHz, ARIEL at 1.4 GHz looking at thin ice on a lead, HUTRAD at 7 and 11 GHz, SSMI at 19, 37, 89 GHz (not all available data shown). (D) Reflected GNSS data, i.e., reflectivity at the Remote Sensing Site (blue) and for sea ice next to Polarstern (red). In the plot titles the used incidence angle range is given. Vertical dashed lines mark the start of warming and/or storm events. (E) Exemple photographs of the remote sensing site during winter and summer.