Cryoclim: A new Operational System and Service for Climate Monitoring of the Cryosphere
Solberg, Rune1; Killie, Mari Anne2; Andreassen, Liss Marie3; König, Max4
1Norwegian Computing Center, NORWAY; 2Norwegian Meteorological Institute, NORWAY; 3Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, NORWAY; 4Norwegian Polar Institute, NORWAY

The CryoClim project has developed a new operational and permanent service for long-term systematic climate monitoring of the cryosphere. The product production and the product repositories are hosted by mandated organisations, and the service is delivered through a state-of-the-art web service and web portal. The portal includes manual searching, viewing and downloading capabilities. The machine interface makes the CryoClim service accessible from other web services and applications. The service is free of charge. The database is connected over the Internet in a seamless and scalable network, open for inclusion of more databases/sub-services. The system and service is a contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) according to the climate monitoring principles recommended by the Global Climate Observing System (GEOS).

The service provides sea ice and snow products of global coverage and glacier products covering Norway (mainland and Svalbard). The service has been developed by the Norwegian Computing Center (NR; project coordinator), Norwegian Meteorological Institute (METNO), Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) and Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI). CryoClim is an ESA PRODEX project funded by the Norwegian Space Centre. The final development of the service is now close to the end.

The sea ice sub-service is based on data from passive microwave radiometers (SMMR and SSM/I). Sea ice concentration and sea ice edge have been retrieved for a time series covering the period 1979-2009. For snow the period 1979-2010 is covered by snow cover extent products. These are based on a multi-sensor algorithm based on a fusion of retrieval data from optical (AVHRR starting from 1982) and passive microwave radiometers (SMMR and SSM/I). The time series will be extended with regular updating starting operation soon. Glacier maps, including glacier area outline and glacier lakes, have been generated from Landsat TM, ETM+ and aerial photos for all glaciers in mainland Norway covering three periods [1952-1985 (aerial); 1982-1999 and 1999-2006 (satellite)]. Additionally, in situ photos and information on glacier-lake outburst floods are provided. For Svalbard, SAR data (ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat ASAR and Radarsat) has been used for glacier surface type (1990-2012) and optical data (MODIS) for snow-line mapping (1999-2012) as a proxy for a mass balance. The glacier area outline time series covers three epochs, using optical data (ASTER, SPOT and Landsat) for the most recent with complete coverage (2001-2010), and using cartographic data for partial coverage of 1990 and the period 1936-1971. The presentation will give an overview of the service and products, including algorithms applied to satellite data.