Landsat surface type over water from supervised classification of surface broadband albedo estimates - Part II

Abstract: In the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Phase 2 (CCI+) sea ice essential climate variable (ECV) project (SICCI) [Climate Change Initiative Sea_Ice_cci_Project] a suite of Landsat images of both hemispheres were used to evaluate sea-ice concentration (SIC) products based on satellite microwave radiometry. First, surface broadband albedo values were estimated based on channels 3,4,5 of the Landsat-8 OLI sensor. Secondly, a supervised classification was employed, classifying the broadband albedo maps into open water, thin/bare ice and thick/snow-covered ice. Thresholds used for the classification are less or equal than 0.07 and greater or than 0.4 for the open water / thin ice and thin ice / thick ice transition, respectively. Metadata files are given for  both hemispheres including the sun zenith angle of the Landsat-8 OLI image and the two thresholds used. Resulting maps have been quality checked for artifacts due to cloudy pixels and double scenes. Note that there might a few maps with a slight overlap from two adjacent Landsat images.

TableOfContents: surface type flag (0: open water, 1: thin or bare sea ice, 2: thick or snow-covered ice, 127: missing data or clouds)

Technical Info: dimensions: nominal: 6166 columns x 6000 rows x unlimited; dimensions actual: variable, depends on how the Landsat scene fits into a rectangular bounding box determined by the minimum and maximum values of latitude and longitude of each scene; temporalExtent_startDate: 2019-01-01; temporalExtent_endDate: 2020-12-31; temporalResolution: ~28 s / image; spatialResolution: 30; spatialResolutionUnit: meters; horizontalResolutionXdirection: 30; horizontalResolutionXdirectionUnit: meters; horizontalResolutionYdirection: 30; horizontalResolutionYdirectionUnit: meters; verticalResolution: none; verticalResolutionUnit: none; verticalStart: none; verticalEnd: none; instrumentName: Landsat-8: Operational Land Imager (OLI); instrumentType: optical sensor; instrumentLocation: Landsat-8; instrumentProvider: NASA

Methods: [1] http://esa-cci.nersc.no/?q=documents#/Public/Documents from phase 2/D4.1_SICCI_P2_PVIR-SIC_Issue_1.1.pdf; [2] Knap, W. H., Brock, B. W., Oerlemans, J., and Willis, I. C.: Comparison of Landsat TM-derived and ground-based albedos of Haut Glacier d Arolla, Switzerland. Int. J. Rem. Sens., 20(17), 3293-3310, 1999; [3] Koepke, P., Removal of Atmospheric Effects from AVHRR albedos, J. Appl. Meteorol., 28, 1341-1348, 1989; [4] Barsi, J. A., Kenton, L., Kvaran, G., Markham, B. L., and Pedelty, J. A.: The spectral response of the Landsat-8 operational land imager. Rem. Sens., 6(10), 10232-10251, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs61010232, 2014; [5] Zatko, M. C., and Warren, S. G.: East Antarctic sea ice in spring: spectral albedo of snow, nilas, frost flowers and slush, and light-absorbing impurities in snow. Ann. Glaciol., 56(69), 53-64, https://doi.org/10.3189/2015AoG69A574, 2015.

Units: 1

geoLocations:

• Northern Hemisphere: westBoundLongitude: -180.0 degrees East; eastBoundLongitude: 180.0 degrees East; southBoundLatitude: 50.0 degrees North; northBoundLatitude: 90.0 degrees North; geoLocationPlace: Northern Hemisphere over water
• Southern Hemisphere: westBoundLongitude: -180.0 degrees East; eastBoundLongitude: 180.0 degrees East; southBoundLatitude: -80.0 degrees North; northBoundLatitude: -60.0 degrees North; geoLocationPlace: Southern Hemisphere over water

Size: (files are packed into one zip-file per year for the Northern Hemisphere and into one zip-file per month for the Southern Hemisphere)

• Northern Hemisphere: 80 files in total; about 67 Gbyte (zipped: 27.6 Gbyte) in total
• Southern Hemisphere: 209 files in total; about 167 Gbyte (zipped: 75.1 Gbyte) in total

Format: netCDF

DataSources: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ [last access: 2025-09-09]

Contact: stefan.kern (at) uni-hamburg.de