Polar sea-ice classification using enhanced resolution NSCAT data

The NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) collected Ku-band scatterometer measurements from September 1996 to June 1997. These data are converted high resolution six day images of the polar regions through the use of the scatterometer image reconstruction with filter (SIRF) algorithm. SIRF produces images of A and B where A is /spl sigma//sup 0/ at 40/spl deg/ incidence and B is the incidence angle dependence of /spl sigma//sup 0/. A simple four-dimensional classification technique is proposed which uses the dual polarization parameters A/sub v/, A/sub h/, B/sub v/, and B/sub h/. A k-means clustering classification can be used to separate pixels of the images with differing scattering mechanisms. This method also adapts to the seasonal characteristics of cluster migration by converging to the locally optimal cluster centroids. While validation data was not available at the time of this writing, the method is shown to have high correlation with the NSIDC SSM/I derived multiyear ice maps.