Author(s): Paula Kankaanpaa; William Stringer
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Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The detectability of sea ice ridges in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data taken in the Bay of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea was examined by comparing the data set with other measurements: a 264 m long survey profile was made by taking surface elevations above water level from ice and snow surfaces. Laser profilometer carried by a helicopter measured a 2.6 km long height profile from the snow surface, which included the surveyed profile. The SAR image (resolution 6 x 6 m) was rectified according to a airphoto taken from the study area at the same day. Digital microwave backscatter intensity and gray intensity values were extracted from the both images along the measured profiles. The four data sets were compared by linear correlation coefficients made between the maximum values of 6 m intervals of each data set. There is a strong similarity between the profiles drawn according to each data set, also correlations between them were relatively high. The digital gray intensity of the airphoto data correlated with the surface height. The notable result of the study is that there exists a dependence between the surface height and backscatter intensity of SAR, and the correlation is better when the heights measured from the snow surface are used.
Year: 1990