Arctic ice type identification by radar

The pack ice in the Arctic Ocean was the subject of a special remote sensing mission conducted jointly by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Navy Oceanographic Office, the U. S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, the Arctic Institute of North America, and the University of Kansas. One of the most significant results of the experiment was verification of the ice type identification potential of a 2.25-cm-wavelength radar scatterometer. The results of the radar experiment are presented and the data are analyzed to determine the characteristics of radar backscatter from various Arctic ice types. A quantitative analysis of the data indicates that identifiable radar return "signatures" are obtained for each of several specific sea ice types. A qualitative analysis based on the Kirchhoff-Huygens principle suggests that a categorizing factor, denoted as the surface roughness factor, can be assigned to each of several ice types.