The Blog is written by Working Group Members to support the community. We hope you find some useful information to help you develop strategies for your own research and uncertainty quantification needs.
The Arctic and Southern Oceans are typically covered by a relatively thin layer of ice – sea ice – that waxes and wanes with the seasons. Sea ice that’s only a few weeks old might typically be an inch or two thick, semi-transparent and supple. As snow begins to accumulate and the ice thickens, strengthens and deforms through winter, it starts to resemble a more characteristic ‘pack’ of conjoined bright-white ice floes.
The launch of the SMOS (2009), Aquarius (2011) and SMAP (2015) satellites heralded a new era of oceanographic observation: salinity measurements from space. Previously, salinity was only measured in situ, most broadly through the global network of Argo floats that began sampling in the early 2000s.
