| Summary: | Recent sea ice dynamics research and ice forecasts focus on the importance of sea ice topography and thickness. Sea ice topography is a critical component in sea ice drag forces, understanding sea ice motion and extent, heat transfer at the ocean-atmosphere interface, and safe ice-related decisions in marine navigation. The overarching objective of this study is to assess the inter-relationships of optical laser altimeter Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (IS-2, 2019-Present) and the C-band frequency RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM, 2019-Present) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to provide near-continual measurements of sea ice topography at the regional scale. For this study, a survey of first-year ice (FYI) and multi-year ice (MYI) in the McClintock Channel portion of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) is completed during the winter and spring/summer seasons. RCM ScanSAR mode scenes are regionally co-located with the heights and calculated surface roughness for sea ice from Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLS 07) on IS-2. The IS-2 measured sea ice parameter data provide a vital cross-comparison of RCM measured backscatter variables. An object-based image analysis is used to link the IS-2 measured variables and RCM backscatter quantitatively. For data optimization, 12 bands from RCM are analyzed, including calibrated backscatter channels (HH and HV), their combinations (ratio, addition, subtraction, and multiplication), and a set of grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) based texture parameters derived from each backscatter channel, following the derivations provided in Scharien and Nasonova (2020). IS-2 ATL07 data are studied to measure sea ice surface elevation and roughness. Overall, strong positive linear relationships between backscatter and IS-2-derived surface roughness and elevation are found during the late winter (April and May) period, which supports the use of dual-polarization (HH and HV) RCM scenes and the combination of these channels (HH+HV) as complements to ...
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