Wave Processes in Arctic Seas, Observed from TerraSAR-X

• Main Author: Lehner,Susanne
• Other Authors: German Aerospace Center Bremen Germany
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: synthetic aperture radar; marginal ice zones; arctic ocean; ice breakup; sea ice; sea states; spaceborne; radar images; ocean surface; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD1013708; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD1013708

Over the ocean, synthetic aperture radar is capable of providing wind and wave information by measuring the roughness of the sea surface, as well as information on ice coverage. In particular, TerraSAR-X data have been used to investigate the highly variable wave climate in coastal areas (e.g. Lehner et al., 2013). However, the use of these data at the sea ice boundary is still to be utilized in full detail. In addition, TerraSAR-X data provide accurate estimates of the wind field over the ocean as well as the position (and change) of the ice edge, ice drift estimates, and ice floe size distributions.The main objectives of the proposed work are to adapt existing TerraSAR-X wave parameter and ice motion retrieval algorithms for the marginal ice zone in order to: analyze the spatial and temporal variability of the wave field in the emerging ice-free regions; investigate wave damping in sea ice and the related ice breakup; test/develop formulae of wave development (such as fetch laws) for the marginal ice zone; provide wave field characteristics and wind data to other research groups within this DRI provide ice field characteristics to other research groups within this DRI.