Abstract
There is a lack of data on the state of the atmosphere and the surface in polar regions because of too few direct observations, which makes remote sensing methods especially important in these regions. We present two new methods for retrieving several surface and atmospheric parameters over the Arctic from radiances measured by AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS) on the satellite Aqua. The first method retrieves the emissivities of sea ice at AMSR-E frequencies from AMSR-E radiances with the help of meteorological reanalysis data. This is valuable since the sea ice emissivity at this range is not well known. Mean emissivities thus retrieved for two representative regions (first-year ice and multiyear ice) are needed by the second method which simultaneously retrieves atmospheric and surface parameters from AMSR-E radiances. The parameters are : total water vapor, cloud liquid water path, surface wind speed, surface temperature of sea ice and ocean, sea ice concentration, and multiyear ice fraction. Both methods yield reasonable results.
