Cover Candidate for PNAS:Albedo Decrease Linked to Arctic Sea Ice

  • Released Tuesday, March 11, 2014
  • Updated Thursday, January 8, 2015 at 2:01PM
  • ID: 4138
These still images were generated to be cover candidates for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The images display data from the paper "Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice". Average September Arctic sea ice from 1979 is shown on the top globe of each image. Average September Arctic sea ice from 2012 with change in albedo overlaid is shown in the bottom globe of each image. Two images are provided which use different color tables.

This is the first study to document Arctic-wide decrease in planetary albedo using satellite radiation budget measurements and sea ice data. The study finds a very strong correlation between sea ice cover and planetary albedo.

Here are links to the related NASA press release and the article.


Print resolution still: top globe shows 1979 September sea ice cover; bottom globe shows 2012 September sea ice cover with albedo change overlaid using a red color bar. Versions are provided with and without labels.

Print resolution still: top globe shows 1979 September sea ice cover; bottom globe shows 2012 September sea ice cover with albedo change overlaid using a red color bar. Versions are provided with and without labels.

Red color bar: dark red indicates darker areas (i.e., more absorbent to radiation than in previous years) , lighter reds, orange and into blue indicate no change (i.e., similar to previous years).

Red color bar: dark red indicates darker areas (i.e., more absorbent to radiation than in previous years) , lighter reds, orange and into blue indicate no change (i.e., similar to previous years).

Print resolution still: top globe shows 1979 September sea ice cover; bottom globe shows 2012 September sea ice cover with albedo change overlaid using a blue color bar. Versions are provided with and without labels.

Print resolution still: top globe shows 1979 September sea ice cover; bottom globe shows 2012 September sea ice cover with albedo change overlaid using a blue color bar. Versions are provided with and without labels.

Blue color bar: dark blue indicates darker areas (i.e., more absorbent to radiation than in previous years) , lighter blues and into white indicate no change (i.e., similar to previous years).

Blue color bar: dark blue indicates darker areas (i.e., more absorbent to radiation than in previous years) , lighter blues and into white indicate no change (i.e., similar to previous years).

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

Papers

This visualization is based on the following papers:

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

Aqua Albedo (Collected with the CERES sensor)
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Terra and Aqua BMNG (A.K.A. Blue Marble: Next Generation) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)

Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

Dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

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DMSP NSIDC SSMI (A.K.A. Sea Ice Concentration) (Collected with the SSM/I sensor)
Observed DataNSIDC08/1987 through 09/2012
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NIMBUS-7 SMMR (A.K.A. Sea Ice Concentration) (Collected with the SMMR sensor)
Observed DataNSIDC09/1979 through 07/1987
See more visualizations using this data set

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

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