Normalized radar cross section analysis of oil-contaminated young Sea ice

Oil spills may be detected in ice-covered waters through the observed changes in its normalized radar cross section (NRCS) data. In this paper, the NRCS sensitivity to the presence of an oil layer beneath the young sea ice is investigated for various sea ice versus oil layer thicknesses. To this end, time-series measurements on artificially-grown sea ice performed at Sea-ice Environmental Research Facility (SERF) at University of Manitoba are used to model the dielectric profile of a young sea ice. Next, three scenarios are introduced that consider the absence, or presence of the oil layer. To achieve our goal, the NRCS values associated with each case are simulated utilizing the boundary perturbation theory. Subsequently, the discrepancies between different scenarios are calculated. The simulated discrepancies indicate the possibility of a successful oil detection through inversion algorithms that utilize NRCS data.