News: Aroris

Too Much Data to Study the Arctic? ArORIS Provides One Cohesive Product

The Arctic’s ice content and snow cover has been a focus of major concern for the past years, with many hours of satellite time and man-power being devoted to study its decline. With 22 individual products, algorithms, and analyses to study, it can quickly overwhelm an individual team trying to make sense of the data. This is where the Arctic Observation and Reanalysis Integrated System (or ArORIS, to save a mouthful) comes into play. This system merges the multitude of data sources covering the Arctic into one data product that can help scientists better understand what is happening to the global climate through changes in the Arctic’s ice.

Christensen et al. detail a plethora of potential applications for ArORIS, ranging from validating ice surface heat-release (or radiation) for different data sources, to helping understand how the changing reflectiveness (or albedo) of sea ice and exposed ocean in the Arctic has contributed to higher temperatures there compared to raised temperatures across the globe.

To learn more about these and other applications for ArORIS, read the full article here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00273.1

CloudSat Product tags: 2B-GEOPROF, 2B-GEOPROF-LIDAR, 2B-FLXHR-LIDAR, 2C-RAIN-PROFILE, 2C-SNOW-PROFILE, ECMWF-AUX, MODIS-AUX Synopsis Author: Kalina Velev, JPL