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Variations in ocean currents, sea ice concentration, and sea surface temperature along the North-East coast of Greenland (NEG-OCEAN)

Applicant Dr.-Ing. Denise Dettmering, since 5/2015
Subject Area Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
Term from 2015 to 2019
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 265420783
 
Final Report Year 2019

Final Report Abstract

NEG-Ocean aimed to identify and describe the temporal evolution of ocean surface currents, DOT, and other ocean related quantities at the North East (NE) coast of Greenland in order to provide a basis for studying the connection between ice sheet, ocean, and sea ice. The project provides a comprehensive description of the temporal evolution of the Greenland surface currents for the period between 1995 and 2012. This data set has been derived by combining satellite altimetry data, Earth gravity field models, and ocean modelling with an innovative approach based on a principal component analysis (PCA). In order to derive this data set, improved along-track altimetry sea surface heights have been computed based on a newly developed waveform classification approach and dedicated waveform retracking with ALES+, a physical retracker providing consistent results for different water surfaces (i.e. open ocean and sea ice leads). Different daily data grids were derived, namely sea-ice concentration, dynamic ocean topography, surface velocities as well as eddy kinetic energy grids. The ocean topography as well as the geostrophic surface velocities (zonal and meridional components) derived within this project will be freely available for the public via PANGAEA (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.900691). They provide insight in the long-term evolution of surface currents in the NE Greenland Sea and are a valuable pre-requisite for investigating processes and interactions in this part of the Arctic Ocean. Especially, they may be used for studying the coupling processes between land ice and the sea-ice covered ocean in order to better understand and forecast melting processes in this region.

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