Microwave brightness temperature and freeze-thaw datasets for medium-large lakes over the High Asia ( 2002 – 2016)

High Asia, dotted with lakes, is a hotspot for researchers and a sensitive zone in global changes over the mid-latitude region of Northern Hemisphere. Due to the great differences in dielectric constant of ice and water, the satellite-borne passive microwave remote sensing, which is of high revisit rate and insensitive to weather, can realise the rapid determination of lake ice thaw and freezing. Based on the proportion rate of Lake and land area within the microwave radiometer pixels, the brightness temperature of Lake Surface is acquired by way of linear and dynamic decomposition from the footprint measurement of radiometer. Therefore, the lake ice freeze-thaw has been closely-monitored over the High Asia within 51 sub-pixels level lakes across the 2002-2015. The cloudless MODIS optics snow products data were used as the validation data, and three different sizes of lakes, Hoh Xil Lake, Dagze Co Lake and Kusai Lake, which were distributed in different regions of high-Asia, were selected. The results suggested that the parameters of the freeze and thaw time of lake ice are related with high correlation coefficients, 0.968 and 0.987 respectively, measured by the two methods. This datasets contain data of lake brightness temperature and lake ice freeze-thaw in different basin of High Asia, which can be used to carry out further geophysical inversion of lakes, and enhance the understanding of Lake freezing and thawing in High Asia, so as to provide data base for the climate and environmental change in high Asia as well as its response to global climate change.