Extracting sea ice parameters from SAR imagettes

From raw ERS wavemode data, complex SAR images of size 5 km × 10 km - so called imagettes - were computed using the BSAR processor at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Being collected every 200 km along the orbit, imagettes provide a relatively dense coverage especially over polar oceans up to 84 degrees North. Several statistical measures have been introduced for analysis of imagettes classifying ice free and ice contaminated imagettes as well as deriving sea ice parameters such as ice concentration, deformation energy, and ridge frequency. The results are compared to SSM/I data and sea ice model results. In addition, a wavelet-based edge detector is used to examine the ice surface structure. Using the imagettes in an automatic extraction system can provide global statistics of sea state and sea ice parameters from both upcoming ENVISAT and historic ERS data providing a 10 year dataset.