Towards Operational Sea Ice Type Retrieval Using L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar

Operational ice services around the world have recognized the economic and environmental benefits that come from the increased capabilities and uses of space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observation system. The two major objectives in SAR based remote sensing of sea ice is on the one hand to have a large areal coverage, and on the other hand to obtain a radar response that carries as much information as possible. Although until now, L-Band SAR sensors are rarely used in an operational context, it offers greater capabilities for sea ice type retrieval and is more robust during the melt season compared to higher frequency bands. With the help of JAXA's ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 sensor, we are able to explore the potential of polarimetric L-band acquisitions for sea ice analysis and classification in an operational environment. In this study we investigated the incidence angle related variation on the L-band backscatter and recommended optimal scenarios for Artificial Neural Network based sea ice type retrieval schemes.