Scatterometer measurements of Arctic sea ice at C-band

The Arctic-91 expedition was a part of a project for calibration and validation of the ERS-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar, and for studying its feasibility for sea ice mapping. The authors MINISCAT scatterometer operating at the ERS-1 SAR center frequency of 5.3 GHz was used for the airborne measurements. Targets measured with MINISCAT consisted of four different ice types with ice thickness varying from 5 cm to more than 3 metres. The temperature during the mission varied from +2°C to -16°C. The results show that W and VH polarizations together can be used for ice type discrimination, but single-polarization measurements alone do not provide a reliable discrimination. No significant temperature correlation could be found in the case of dry snow cover