Work

First-Year and Multiyear Sea Ice Incidence Angle Normalization of Dual-Polarized Sentinel-1 SAR Images in the Beaufort Sea

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: Automatic and visual sea ice classification of SAR imagery is impeded by the incidence angle dependence of backscatter intensities. Knowledge of the angular dependence of different ice types is therefore necessary to account for this effect. While consistent estimates exist for HH polarization for different ice types, they are lacking HV polarization data, especially for multiyear sea ice. Here we investigate the incidence angle dependence of smooth and rough/deformed first-year and multiyear ice of different ages for wintertime dual-polarization Sentinel-1 C-band SAR imagery in the Beaufort Sea. Assuming a linear relationship, this dependence is determined using the difference in incidence angle and backscatter intensities from ascending and descending images of the same area. At cross-polarization rough/deformed first-year sea ice shows the strongest angular dependence with -0.11 dB/1° followed by multiyear sea ice with -0.07 dB/1°, and old multiyear ice (older than three years) with -0.04 dB/1°. The noise floor is found to have a strong impact on smooth first-year ice and estimated slopes are therefore not fully reliable. At co-polarization, we obtained slope values of -0.24, -0.20, -0.15, and -0.10 dB/1° for smooth first-year, rough/deformed first-year, multiyear, and old multiyear sea ice, respectively. Furthermore, we show that imperfect noise correction of the first subswath influences the obtained slopes for multiyear sea ice. We demonstrate that incidence angle normalization should not only be applied to co-polarization but should also be considered for cross-polarization images to minimize intra ice type variation in backscatter intensity throughout the entire image swath.

Source: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

DOI: 10.1109/jstars.2020.2977506

Authors: Wiebke Aldenhoff, Leif E. B. Eriksson, Yufang Ye, Celine Heuze

Institutions: Chalmers University of Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), University of Gothenburg

Language: English

Topic: Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics

Subfield: Atmospheric Science

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,750