2007 Greenland Melt Season Study [720p]

The Greenland ice sheet has been the focus of attention recently because of increasing melt in response to regional climate warming. Several different remote sensing data products have been used to study surface and near-surface melt characteristics of the Greenland ice sheet for the 2007 melt season when record melt extent and runoff occurred. Here, MODIS daily land surface temperature, and a special diurnal melt product derived from QuikSCAT scatterometer data, measure the evolution of melt on the ice sheet. Although these daily products are sensitive to different geophysical features, they show excellent correspondence when surface melt is present. This animation displays these two data products side-by-side, showing MODIS data on the left side and QuikSCAT data on the right. The 2007 melt season is shown two times, each using a five-day running maximum value. The first time, MODIS surface temperature is shown compared with several categories of QuikSCAT melt. During this sequence, initial melt detected by QuikSCAT is shown in light blue, melt detected under a refrozen surface is shown in medium blue and completed melt is shown in dark blue. For the MODIS temperature data, regions with a surface temperature greater than -1 degree Celsius are classified as melt and are shown in red. The second time through the melt season, only the melt regions of the MODIS and QuikSCAT are shown. During this comparison, MODIS temperatures greater than or equal to 0.15 degrees Celsius …
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