Twenty three years of Antarctic sea ice motion from microwave satellite imagery

The Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) are used to compute daily sea ice motion maps around the Antarctic continent. These daily maps are used to compute the mean monthly ice motions over this 25-year period. In addition, seasonal averages (June to December) are computed for each year and compared to reveal significant year-to-year variability related to changes in local climate and ice cover conditions. Mean seasonal and mean monthly ice motion fields are related to coincident atmospheric forcing fields. Ice motions computed for individual satellite channels reveal some differences in their response to wind and ocean current forcing. Comparisons with relatively few Antarctic drifting ice buoy trajectories support the ice motions computed from the satellite data alone.