Radiophysical studies of sea ice properties by means of radar polarimetry technique

 

L. N. Zakharova, A. I. Zakharov, M. W. Sorochinskii

Kotel'nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics RAS, Fryazino Brunch, Vvedensky Sq. 1, Fryazino Moscow region, 141120, Russia

 

The paper is received on January 31, 2017

 

Abstract. Modern remote sensing techniques of sea ice monitoring using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar observations are discussed, as well as backscattered signal decomposition techniques and polarimetric parameters characterizing the underlying surface. The results of experimental studies of sea ice with single polarization SARs in various signal frequency bands are presented. It is stated that single polarization measurements may provide the distinction of first year ice and multiyear ice in water areas, however varying observation conditions, especially weather conditions, may lead to strong alterations of the sea ice and water radiophysical properties and corruption of the ice classification results. Polarimetric radar observations are described in the paper, and different ways of polarization channels assimilation and combination are discussed. Backscatter polarimetric parameters may be split in two groups. The efficiency of first group of parameters: polarimetric intensity ratio, polarimetric phase difference, polarization channels correlation coefficient is demonstrated using experimental data described in open literature. It is shown that the use of these parameters and their statistical properties significantly expands an amount of sea ice types being discriminated. An application of second group of parameters derived in various decomposition techniques like as Freeman-Durden and Cloude-Pottier is discussed also. It is mentioned that though these parameters provide valuable information about sea ice scattering mechanisms, their standalone utilization is not so justified as surface scattering mechanism is typically dominating in ice covers backscatter. Polarimetric radar observations should be considered as preferable technique of sea ice observations as they provide qualitatively new information describing sea ice covers in addition to capability of single-channel configurations.

Key words: radar polarimetry, models of radar scattering, synthetic aperture radars, sea ice.

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For citation:

L. N. Zakharova, A. I. Zakharov. M. W. Sorochinskii. Radiophysical studies of sea ice properties by means of radar polarimetry technique. Zhurnal Radioelektroniki - Journal of Radio Electronics, 2017, No. 2. Available at http://jre.cplire.ru/jre/feb17/1/text.pdf. (In Russian)