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Sun glint off open water near the coast of Alaska

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-18 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, from 0800-0930 UTC on 08 June [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed areas of bright sun glint off the open (ice-free) water in the Chukchi Sea — just off the coast of Alaska, from the Bering Strait to near Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) — around 1 AM local time on 08 June 2024. Note how there was also sun glint off the open water of leads within the sea ice, as well as inland rivers/lakes across northern Alaska.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) wind speed (source) derived from an overpass of RADARSAT-2 at 0349 UTC on 08 June (below) showed that winds were generally light (or even calm) across the nearshore waters off the northwest coast of Alaska — which would be conducive to a sea surface with minimal wave height (that would more easily reflect incoming late-day sunlight arriving at a very oblique angle, enhancing sun glint).

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) wind speed derived from an overpass of RADARSAT-2 at 0349 UTC on 08 June [click to enlarge]

ASCAT and OSCAT surface scatterometer winds (source) confirmed the presence of light wind speeds over a portion of the open water north of the Bering Strait, where the sun glint was seen (below).

ASCAT and OSCAT surface scatterometer winds, from 0557-0917 UTC on 08 June

During the subsequent daytime hours, a sequence of VIIRS Snowmelt RGB images sourced from GINA and displayed using RealEarth (below) provided a more detailed view of the sea ice and the areas of inland snow cover (shades of cyan to light blue), in contrast to the areas of open water (dark blue) near the Alaskan coast.

VIIRS Snowmelt RGB images, from 1923 UTC on 08 June to 0049 UTC on 09 June [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Categories: Arctic, Cryosphere, GOES-18, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, SAR, Satellite winds, VIIRS