Height and large-scale height roughness information from CCRS interferometric SAR data of Arctic sea ice

The C/X-band SAR system of the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) participated in the 1993 season of the Canadian SIMMS program (Seasonal Sea Ice Monitoring and Modelling Site). SIMMS is a multi-year multi-disciplinary field experiment on sea ice in Resolute Bay (North Western Territories). On April 30 1993, the C-band across-track interferometric SAR mode was used to record data over a mixed multi-year and first-year ice area. The main goal of this exercise was to study possible manifestation of height and height roughness on multi-year ice, ice ridges and icebergs in the data. Another important goal was the phase calibration of the system over this primarily flat terrain. A model for the phase coherence (phase variability) of the CCRS interferometric data has been developed. It is primarily dependent on quantization noise, receiver noise, baseline decorrelation and “real-world” large-scale height roughness statistics. The model has been used in an attempt to derive height roughness statistics from the interferometric data. The model will be shown and results of filtered height and of large-scale height roughness will be presented and compared with in-situ observations