Sea ice brightness imagery observed during the Meltpond 2000 experiment

As a part of the NASA Aqua satellite validation program the NOAA Environmental Research Laboratory's Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR) was flown on a Navy P-3 aircraft in June-July of 2000. Several flights over melting ice floes in Baffin Bay and Melville Sound were performed with the aim of imaging microwave brightness temperatures at high spatial resolution and under a variety of ice melt states. Conditions observed range from open water to completely frozen ice pack, including melting ponds. Two PSR scanheads were used during the experiment: (1) the PSR/C scanhead provided a C-band microwave radiometer with vertically and horizontally polarized channels at 6.00, 6.50, and 7.325 GHz and a fully polarimetric channel at the AMSR band of 6.92 GHz, (2) the PSR/A scanhead provided fully polarimetric channels at 10.7 and 18.7 GHz, tri-polarimetric channels at 37 and 89 GHz, and a dual-polarimetric channel at 21.5 GHz. Both scanheads provided an infrared radiometer operating from 9.5-11 /spl mu/m. Using the two scanheads all AMSR-E frequencies were covered. In addition, L-band data was obtained using the Scanning Low-Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SLFMR). Results from the calibration of the PSR brightness imagery are presented for both ice and water. These results from PSR and SLFMR show an excellent ability of high-resolution microwave imagery to distinguish melting ice from water, and provide a means of determining the fractal structure of sea ice coverage.