Brief Communication: Mesoscale and submesoscale dynamics in the marginal ice zone from sequential synthetic aperture radar observations

New possibilities for horizontal current retrieval in marginal ice zones (MIZs) from sequential Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are demonstrated. Daily overlapping SAR acquisitions within 70–85 ∘ S/N at time intervals < 1 h enable estimation of high-resolution velocity fields, re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Kozlov, Igor E., Plotnikov, Evgeny V., Manucharyan, Georgy E.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Fram Strait
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2941-2020
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2941/2020/
Description
Summary:New possibilities for horizontal current retrieval in marginal ice zones (MIZs) from sequential Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are demonstrated. Daily overlapping SAR acquisitions within 70–85 ∘ S/N at time intervals < 1 h enable estimation of high-resolution velocity fields, revealing MIZ dynamics down to submesoscales. An example taken from the Fram Strait MIZ reveals energetic eddies and filaments with Rossby numbers reaching O(1) magnitudes. The SAR-derived velocity estimations at such high spatial resolution can be critical for monitoring the evolving MIZ dynamics and model validation of submesoscale processes in polar oceans.

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