Analysis of C-band Polarimetric Signatures of Arctic Lead Ice using Data from AIRSAR and RADARSAT-1

In December 2004 the JPL airborne synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR) flown on the NASA DC-8 acquired fully polarimetric data in the Beaufort Sea at C, L and P-band. This work presents the backscatter coefficients (sigma_HH, sigma_VV, sigma_HV), copolarized ratios (sigma_HH/sigma_VV) and copolarized phase differences (phi_HH-VV) at C-band from different young sea-ice types formed in recently frozen leads. Two weeks of RADARSAT-1 imagery from the same region as the AIRSAR data were used in order to identify when and where leads were formed and to estimate the age of the newly formed ice contained within the leads. A known empirical relationship based on freezing degree days was used to estimate the sea-ice thickness. The results indicate that some of the identified thin ice types have characteristic signatures.