Current status of surface melt in Antarctica
The ongoing melt extent in Antarctica is shown in a pair of graphs, and compared to past years. The information is derived from passive microwave observations (AMSR2 radiometer operated by JAXA) at 12.5 km resolution. The sensor detects the presence of liquid water in the snowpack, which is an indicator of ongoing or recent melt at the surface.
Warming: The algorithm is based on Torinesi et al. 2003 and Picard et al. 2006. It uses an adaptative threshold that is calculated over the current year (from 1st April to present). For this reason it may change as new data are injested during the course of the current summer season. This may affect all the past days of the current year. Only when the full summer season will be over (31st March), consolidated melt extent will be calculated.
Daily Surface Melting Dataset
This consolidated dataset of melt detected with SMMR, SSM/I and SSMIS from 1979 to last year is provided here.