Effects of surface roughness on sea ice freeboard retrieval with an Airborne Ku-Band SAR radar altimeter

Stefan Hendricks; Lars Stenseng; Veit Helm; Christian Haas

doi:10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5654350

Effects of surface roughness on sea ice freeboard retrieval with an Airborne Ku-Band SAR radar altimeter

Stefan Hendricks, Lars Stenseng, Veit Helm, Christian Haas

National Space Institute

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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Abstract

Results from two years of the CryoSat Validation Experiment (CryoVEx) over sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean are presented. The estimation of freeboard, the height of sea ice floating above the water level, is one the main goals of the CryoSat-2 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in order to investigate sea ice volume changes on an Arctic wide scale. Freeboard retrieval requires precise radar range measurements to the ice surface, therefore we investigate the penetration of the Ku-Band radar waves into the overlying snow cover as well as the effects of sub-footprint-scale surface roughness using airborne radar and laser altimeters. We find regional variable penetration of the radar signal at late spring conditions, where the difference of the radar and the reference laser range measurement never agrees with the expected snow thickness. In addition, a rough surface can lead to biases of the airborne validation dataset, since the radar overestimates the amount of open water and thin ice as well the freeboard of heavy ice deformation zones.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium proceedings
Publisher	IEEE
Publication date	2010
Pages	3126-3129
ISBN (Print)	9781424495658
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5654350
Publication status	Published - 2010
Event	30th International Geoscience and Remote Sensing symposium - Honolulu, HI, United States Duration: 25 Jul 2010 → 30 Jul 2010 Conference number: 30 http://www.igarss2010.org/

Conference

Conference	30th International Geoscience and Remote Sensing symposium
Number	30
Country	United States
City	Honolulu, HI
Period	25/07/2010 → 30/07/2010
Internet address	http://www.igarss2010.org/

Bibliographical note

Copyright 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.

Keywords

Sea ice
Synthetic aperture radar
Snow
Radar altimetry

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Cite this

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title = "Effects of surface roughness on sea ice freeboard retrieval with an Airborne Ku-Band SAR radar altimeter",

abstract = "Results from two years of the CryoSat Validation Experiment (CryoVEx) over sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean are presented. The estimation of freeboard, the height of sea ice floating above the water level, is one the main goals of the CryoSat-2 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in order to investigate sea ice volume changes on an Arctic wide scale. Freeboard retrieval requires precise radar range measurements to the ice surface, therefore we investigate the penetration of the Ku-Band radar waves into the overlying snow cover as well as the effects of sub-footprint-scale surface roughness using airborne radar and laser altimeters. We find regional variable penetration of the radar signal at late spring conditions, where the difference of the radar and the reference laser range measurement never agrees with the expected snow thickness. In addition, a rough surface can lead to biases of the airborne validation dataset, since the radar overestimates the amount of open water and thin ice as well the freeboard of heavy ice deformation zones.",

keywords = "Sea ice, Synthetic aperture radar, Snow, Radar altimetry",

author = "Stefan Hendricks and Lars Stenseng and Veit Helm and Christian Haas",

note = "Copyright 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.; 30th International Geoscience and Remote Sensing symposium, IGARSS 2010 ; Conference date: 25-07-2010 Through 30-07-2010",

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Hendricks, S, Stenseng, L, Helm, V & Haas, C 2010, Effects of surface roughness on sea ice freeboard retrieval with an Airborne Ku-Band SAR radar altimeter. in International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium proceedings. IEEE, pp. 3126-3129, 30th International Geoscience and Remote Sensing symposium, Honolulu, HI, United States, 25/07/2010. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5654350

Effects of surface roughness on sea ice freeboard retrieval with an Airborne Ku-Band SAR radar altimeter. / Hendricks, Stefan; Stenseng, Lars; Helm, Veit; Haas, Christian.

International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium proceedings. IEEE, 2010. p. 3126-3129.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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