Sar Polarimetry for Sea Ice Classification

Polarimetric SAR images acquired at Cand L-band over sea ice in the Greenland Sea, Baltic Sea, and Beaufort Sea have been analysed with respect to their potential for ice type classification. The polarimetric data were gathered by the Danish EMISAR and the US AIRSAR which both are airborne systems. For the test sites, complementary data about the characteristics of the ice cover and about the environmental conditions are available. A hierarchical classification scheme was chosen for sea ice because existing knowledge about magnitudes, variations, and dependences of sea ice signatures can be directly considered. The optimal sequence of classification rules and the rules themselves depend on the ice conditions/regimes. The use of the polarimetric phase information improves the classification only in the case of thin ice types but is not necessary for ice above 30 cm thickness.