GlobIce

The goal of the GlobIce project is to derive information data sets over sea ice, which will improve our understanding of the role of the Arctic in global climate. That includes a range of processes that affect climate. These processes include mass balance, heat transfer, and momentum transfer between the Arctic Ocean and the atmosphere. The GlobICE project concentrates on high-resolution sea ice motion, deformation and flux products for climate research, which is in line with the objectives of WCRP and CliC.

Clouds considerably limit the potential of optical sensors in the Arctic, where active microwave sensors offer an efficient and reliable observation. Therefore the project will explore ESA's unique EO satellite archive with 13 years of ERS-1, ERS-2 and ENVISAT for a re-analysis of polar processes. The re- analysis will include seasonal and yearly variations of sea ice as important components for climate modelling and will provide a better understanding of the impact of Arctic ice-motion on the climate.

The GlobIce project objectives are to:

• explore ESA's SAR archive,
• develop a information system on high resolution sea ice dynamic (motion, deformation and flux) to be installed at ESA, and
• provide validated sea ice information products over large areas to the CliC project and the broader scientific community of climate change.

In addition to these objectives this project will provide quantitative calibration and validation of the products through comparison with both in-situ and independent EO data sets. Further the project will ensure use of the data by a number of core users, each with interests in different aspects for the data. The users will report on the usefulness of their data and provide quantitative estimates of the improvements in model performance achieved.

During the project lifetime about 40 000 ERS and 14 000 ENVISAT WS scenes will be processed to derive dynamic sea ice information for the different users.