Texture analysis of radiometric signatures of new sea ice forming in Arctic leads

Analysis of 33.6-GHz. high-resolution, passive microwave images suggests that new sea ice accumulating in open leads is characterized by a unique textural signature which can be used to discriminate new ice forming in this environment from adjacent surfaces of similar radiometric temperature. Data analyzed were acquired in March 1988 in conjunction with the joint US Navy-NASA Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SMM/I) Sea Ice Validation Experiment using the Navy Ka-band Radiometric Mapping System (KRMS), an airborne passive microwave imager. Ten training areas were selected from the data set, three of which consisted entirely of first-year ice, four entirely of multilayer ice, and three of new ice in open leads in the process of freezing. A simple gradient operator was used to characterize the radiometric texture in each training region in terms of the degree to which radiometric gradients are oriented