A Broad Spectral, Interdisciplinary Investigation Of The Electromagnetic Properties Of Sea Ice - Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

This paper highlights the interrelationship of research completed by a team of investigators and presented in the several individual papers comprising this Special Section on the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Arlington, VA, Sponsored Sea Ice Electromagnetics Accelerated Research Initiative (ARI). The objectives of the initiative were the following: 1) understand the mechanisms and processes that link the morphological and physical properties of sea ice to its electromagnetic (EM) characteristics; 2) develop and verify predictive models for the interaction of visible, infrared, and microwave radiation with sea ice; 3) develop and verify inverse scattering techniques applicable to problems involving the interaction of EM radiation with sea ice. Guiding principles for the program were that all EM data be taken with concurrent physical property data (salinity, density, roughness, etc.) and that broad spectral data be acquired in as nearly a simultaneous fashion as possible. Over 30 investigators participated in laboratory, field, and modeling studies that spanned the EM spectrum from radio to ultraviolet wavelengths. An interdisciplinary approach that brought together sea ice physicists, remote-sensing experts (in EM measurements), and forward and inverse modelers (primarily mathematicians and EM theorists) was a hallmark of the program. Along with describing results from experiments and modeling efforts, possible paradigms for using broad spectral data in developing algorithms for analyzing remote-sensing data in terms of ice concentration, age, type, and possibly thickness are briefly discussed. Manuscript received May 20, 1998; revised June 18, 1998. This work was supported by Grants from the Office of Naval Research. K. C. Jezek is with the Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1002 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). D. K. Perovich is with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755 USA. K. M. Golden is with the Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA. C. Luther is with the Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA 22217-5660 USA. D. G. Barber is with the Department of Geography, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., R3T2N2 Canada. P. Gogineni is with the Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 USA. T. C. Grenfell is with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA. A. K. Jordan is with the Remote Sensing Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 USA. C. D. Mobley is with Sequoia Scientific, Inc., Mercer Island, WA 98040 USA. S. V. Nghiem is with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA. R. G. Onstott is with the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48107 USA. Publisher Item Identifier S 0196-2892(98)06692-3.