Author(s): K. I. Gausland; O. T. Gudmestad; H. E. Krogstad; S. Loset
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Abstract: Ice ridges are formed by compression or shear in the ice cover. They may pose a serious threat to shipping and offshore activities in these waters and it would therefore be a major asset to all these marine activities if synthetic apertwe radar remote sensing could be used to identify ice ridges and estimate the ridge dimensions. In order to make qualitative judgement of clUTent SAR systems and establish demands for the future, established semi-empirical backscanering models for sea ice have been combined with mathematical ice ridge models in order to produce simulated SAR images of differently sized first-year ridges for various SAR resolutions and incident angles. The simulations show increased detectability for larger incident angles and greater small~scale surface roughness. Increased resolution appears to be less important for the detectability, but is needed. for reliable ridge dimension estimates. In general, the simulations indicate that incident angles of about 350 or h. igher, with a resolution of 9x9 m or better, would give valuable information about the presence of ridges in level ice. The validity of the simulations may however be questioned due to the uncertainty of smallscale surface roughness measurements of ice ridges. Further analysis is also necessary for investigating whether ice fractures may cause ambiguous signatures relative to ice ridges.
Year: 2000