1. Australian Antarctic Data Centre
2. Discover and Manage Data
3. Records
4. SIPEX_II_Albedo

Description

This dataset contains albedo data for several varieties of sea ice and snow from 300-2500 nm measured during the SIPEX II voyage (2012). An Analytical Spectral Device (ASD) spectrophotometer records the amount of radiation impingent on a cosine collector, which contains a spectralon diffuser plate. The radiation that hits the diffuser plate is scattered equally in all directions (isotropically). A portion of the radiation incident on the plate is scattered in the direction of a fiber optic cable, which is connected to the ASD. The ASD separates the incoming radiation into 3-10 nm wavelength bins, thus creating a radiation spectrum spanning 300-2500 nm. The cosine collector can be oriented both upwards towards the sky and downward towards the snow and/or sea ice to measure the spectral signature of both the downwelling (from the sky) and upwelling (from the snow/ice) radiation. For each site, we record 5 upwelling and 5 downwelling spectral signatures. MATLAB or a similar analysis package is required to open the spectrum files that are created by the ASD. The ASD files are raw files and named in a sequence, starting with 'spectrum.000'.

MATLAB or similar scripts can been written to convert the ASD spectrum data to .mat files. The spectra in the processed files are used to calculate the albedos for various snow and ice types when the ratio of upwelling to downwelling radiation is computed. We use two upwelling scans per one downwelling scan to compute the albedo.

Also included is some photography of frost flowers and other examples of ice that was observed.

Quality

In general, it was difficult to obtain albedo data because not all of the ice stations had thin ice types that were easy to access either by boat or by standing at the edge of a lead.

At ice station 3 (October 5th), the thin ice that we were standing on cracked and we were only able to get two upwelling and two downwelling spectrums.

We did not have any equipment failures.

Access

These data are publicly available for download from the provided URL.

Temporal Coverages

• Start date: 2012-09-14 - Stop date: 2012-11-04

Spatial Coverages

Science Keywords

• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > ALBEDO
• EARTH SCIENCE > CRYOSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > ALBEDO

Use Constraints

This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=SIPEX_II_Albedo when using these data.