Sea ice classification in the Weddell Sea based on scatterometer data

• Main Authors: Xiang, Gao, Xiaoping, Pang, Qing, Ji
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Polar Research Institute of China - PRIC 2017
• Subjects: Oceans; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Weddell Sea; Weddell; Advances in Polar Science; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Science; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://library.arcticportal.org/2638/; http://library.arcticportal.org/2638/1/A180205000005.pdf

Sea ice type is an important factor for accurately calculating sea ice parameters such as sea ice concentration, sea ice area and sea ice thickness using satellite remote sensing data. In this study, sea ice in the Weddell Sea was classified from scatterometer data by the histogram threshold method and the Spreen model method, and evaluated and validated with the Antarctic Sea Ice Processes and Climate (ASPeCt) sea ice type ship-based observations. The results show that the two methods can both distinguish multi-year (MY) ice and first-year (FY) ice during the ice growth season, and that the histogram threshold method has a relatively larger MY ice classification extent than the Spreen model. The classification accuracy of the histogram threshold method is 77.8%, while the Spreen model method accuracy is 80.3% compared with the ship-based observations, thus indicating that the Spreen model method is better for discriminating MY ice from FY ice from scatterometer data. These results provide a basis and reference for further retrieval of long-time sea ice type information for the whole Antarctica.