Combining SAR and AVHRR to understand sea ice dynamics in the seasonal and perennial ice zones of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas

In this paper, we discuss the use of three data analysis techniques for understanding sea ice dynamics at the regional scale during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) Experiment in the winter of 1998. The satellite data consist of SAR and AVHRR, and the techniques used include: 1) hue-intensity saturation (HIS); 2) Radarsat Geophysical Processor System (RGPS) ice tracking; 3) measurements of sea ice deformation in the seasonal ice zone (SIZ) and the perennial ice zone (PIZ) of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. We then discuss the results of data analyses using these techniques and the importance of the observations in understanding the behavior of the SIZ and PIZ, and the implications these observations have for understanding and modeling ice dynamics in this region