A New Spaceborne Mission Concept for The Monitoring of the Cryosphere : CryoRAD

作者：Marco Brogioni, Giovanni Macelloni, Marion Leduc‐Leballeur, Ghislain Picard, Jacqueline Boutin, Aurélien Quiquet, Lars Kaleschke, Laurent Bertino, Stef Lhermitte, Anne Solgaard, S. H. Svendsen, Kenneth C. Jezek, Anna Kontu, Kimmo Rautiainen, Jean‐Luc Vergely, Roger Oliva, R. Onrubia, Yiwen Zhou, Rasmus Tonboe, Matthias Drusch · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10157 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Geophysics and Gravity Measurements、Spacecraft and Cryogenic Technologies、Spacecraft Design and Technology

Over the past decade, the availability of new low-frequency microwave spaceborne data has provided key parameters of the cryosphere and polar ocean that can be assimilated into Earth System Models, enhancing our understanding of fundamental processes. Building on these findings, new initiatives have emerged to explore the potential of using even lower frequencies (with the current lower limit being 1.4 GHz). These lower frequencies can penetrate deeper into ice and have shown greater sensitivity to sea surface salinity in cold waters. Airborne surveys conducted in Greenland and Antarctica have demonstrated the potential of low-frequency wideband radiometers in monitoring polar regions, offering unprecedented capabilities compared to existing and planned spaceborne satellites. The ESA Earth Explorer 12 CryoRad mission candidate aims to fully demonstrate these capabilities and produce key scientific data for advancing cryosphere studies. CryoRad consists of a single satellite equipped with a broadband low-frequency microwave radiometer operating in the range 0.4 to 2 GHz with continuous frequency scanning with frequent revisit and a complete coverage of polar regions. The three main mission objectives are: (i) Better assess the mass balance and stability of ice sheets, by bridging the observation gap for ice sheet  temperature profiles of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, extending from surface to base, a dataset previously available only through limited borehole obs...