Ice breakup dates on 18 Eurasian lakes estimated by MODIS data

Ice breakup date is one of the important indices showing climate changes, and we had developed the ice breakup date estimation method using satellite data to infer the ice breakup date of the lakes with no available in-situ data. In this study, ice breakup dates on 18 Eurasian lakes from 2001 to 2005 were estimated using water temperature trend derived from MODIS data. The annual changes of the ice breakup dates were different by the location, elevation, local climate, and so on. In the next stage, we evaluated the relationships between ice breakup dates and mean air temperature. The result showed that 1 day change of the ice breakup date represented the 0.2 ℃ changes of the mean air temperature. 1