Snow-pit measurements on Atka Bay landfast sea ice during ANT-Land 2012/2013 season

Up to now, snow cover on Antarctic sea ice and its impact on radar backscatter, particularly after the onset of freeze/thaw processes, are not well understood. Here we present a combined analysis of in situ observations of snow properties from the landfast sea ice in Atka Bay, Antarctica, and high-r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Paul, Stephan, Willmes, Sascha, Hoppmann, Mario, Hunkeler, Priska A, Wesche, Christine, Nicolaus, Marcel, Heinemann, Günther, Timmermann, Ralph
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2015
Subjects:
Priority Programme 1158 Antarctic Research with Comparable Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas
SPP1158
Arctic
Antarctic
Austral
Atka
Annals of Glaciology
Antarc*
Antarctica
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.848914
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.848914
Description
Summary:Up to now, snow cover on Antarctic sea ice and its impact on radar backscatter, particularly after the onset of freeze/thaw processes, are not well understood. Here we present a combined analysis of in situ observations of snow properties from the landfast sea ice in Atka Bay, Antarctica, and high-resolution TerraSAR-X backscatter data, for the transition from austral spring (November 2012) to summer (January 2013). The physical changes in the seasonal snow cover during that time are reflected in the evolution of TerraSAR-X backscatter. We are able to explain 76-93% of the spatio-temporal variability of the TerraSAR-X backscatter signal with up to four snowpack parameters with a root-mean-squared error of 0.87-1.62 dB, using a simple multiple linear model. Over the complete study, and especially after the onset of early-melt processes and freeze/thaw cycles, the majority of variability in the backscatter is influenced by changes in snow/ice interface temperature, snow depth and top-layer grain size. This suggests it may be possible to retrieve snow physical properties over Antarctic sea ice from X-band SAR backscatter.

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