TANGOSat data for sea ice research

• Main Authors: Dierking, Wolfgang, Toudal Pedersen, Leif, Eriksson, Leif, Ulander, Lars, Mäkynen, Marko, Eltoft, Torbjørn
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Arctic; Antarctic; Greenland; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/36407/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/36407/1/TangoSat_Dierking_etal.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.44245; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.44245.d001

Compared to widely used C-band SAR imagery, L-band SAR is a valuable complement in monitoring the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers, since it is very sensitive to ice deformation structures. The continuous observation of sea ice and the retrieval of sea ice properties from satellite data has received increased attention from the science community after the extreme minimum of summer arctic sea ice extent observed in 2007, which was followed by an even lower minimum in 2012. Also in operational sea ice monitoring there is an interest in investigating the potential of L-band SAR for sea ice mapping, although spatial coverage and timeliness of L-band data provided by recent satellite missions are still a critical issue for operational services. The concept of the TANGOSat mission will it make possible to address the potential of satellite tandems in gaining additional insights into the interaction between longer microwaves and sea ice. In particular the tomographic and bistatic phase may offer possibilities for specific investigations such as depth of scatterers and structures in thick multi-year ice (as found north of Greenland), quantification of ice surface roughness due to the occurrence of deformation structures, potential improvements of ice type classification, or snapshots of ice drift components by using along-track interferometry. In the presentation, different possibilities of investigations will be discussed.