River ice phenology and thickness from satellite altimetry. Potential for ice bridge road operation

• Main Authors: Zakharova, Elena, Agafonova, Svetlana, Duguay, Claude, Frolova, Natalia, Kouraev, Alexei
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Salekhard; ob river; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-325; https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-325/

River ice is an important component of land cryosphere. Satellite monitoring of river ice is rapidly developing scientific area with an important outcome for many climate, environmental and socio-economic applications. Radar altimetry, now widely used for monitoring of river water regime, demonstrates a good potential for observation of river ice phenology and for an estimation of river ice thickness. Jason-2 and -3 Ku-band backscatter measurements are sensitive enough for detection of first appearance of the ice and of beginning of thermal ice degradation on the Lower Ob River (Western Siberia). Uncertainties of the altimetric ice events timing are less than 10 days for 88–90 % of cases. River ice thickness retrieved from altimetric measurements via empirical relations with in situ observations, has an accuracy (expressed as RMSE) varying from 0.07 to 0.18 m. We demonstrated that using satellite altimetry the dates of ice road opening at Salekhard city can be predicted quite accurately with 4 days delay. Uncertainties for the prediction of dates of the ice road closure are of 3 days with the delay varying from 4 days (for late melting start) to 22 days (for yearly melting start).