| Summary: | The surface classification is obtained from orthomosaic images of the surface during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of the Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) campaign. The HELiX Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) flew above the sea ice during the summertime of 2020. The images are available for download at https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A2RV0D21Z/ and the description of the images is detailed in Hamilton et al., 2021 (DOI: 10.18739/A2T727H3V). Images are obtained in 5 spectral bands: blue, green, red, red edge and NIR. Three categories of surface types are defined in the dataset: ocean, melt pond, and snow/bare ice. The study focuses on orthomosaic images from gird and profile UAS flights. For each orthomosaic, samples of identifiable features are selected for each surface type in each spectral band. Based on these samples, the threshold to separate open water from melt ponds is defined in the blue channel and the threshold to separate melt ponds from snow/bare ice surface is defined in the NIR channel. More details of the methodology, correction, and uncertainty to define surface features can be found in Calmer et al., 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2023.00001). The results of the surface classification are used to calculate the melt pond fraction associated with the scene captured by each orthomosaic image.
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