Sea ice area detection in the sea of Okhotsk using PALSAR polarimetric data

The objective of this research is into detecting sea ice from PALSAR (Phased-Array type L-band SAR) polarimetric data. A new method utilizing scattering entropy for detecting sea ice area was proposed. This paper shows the results of estimating sea ice area from PALSAR polarimetric data acquired from 2008 to 2010. The AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS) sea ice concentration and the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data are used to verify the result of sea ice area derived from PALSAR data. The difference in the detected sea ice areas was found especially in AMSR-E lower concentration area. The high resolution backscattering and scattering entropy images give us an idea that there is some difficulty in AMSR-E to detect thin sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. Since most of PALSAR detected sea ice area was also detected by MODIS data, we can conclude that our proposed method is reliable to detect thin sea ice area in the Sea of Okhotsk.