CIRFA seminar 12 October: Xu and Grahn – Analysis of scattering from sea ice, and interpreting sea ice SAR data

CIRFA welcomes you to a seminar where PhD students Xu Xu and Jakob Grahn will give you talks about analysis of scattering from sea ice and interpreting sea ice SAR data.

Date: Thursday 12 October, 14h00-15h00 [add to calendar]
Venue: CIRFA, SIVA Innovation Centre (Forskningsparken), Tromsø [map]

 

Analysis of Scattering from Sea Ice based on the Finite Element Method

Xu Xu, PhD student, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Electromagnetic (EM) Modeling studies can be undertaken to simulate the expected backscattering from hypothetical sea ice. We introduce numerical scattering models using the Finite Element Method (FEM). Based on the type of simulated surface and incident wave, a non-periodic model and a periodic model are built. The two models are compared with the analytic model, Small Perturbation Method (SPM). The FEM-based model is used to simulate the backscattering from a newly formed sea ice under C and L bands. The backscattering radar cross section and co-pol ratio results for the 2 bands are compared. We observe that the results oscillate with the change of the sea ice thickness due to the interference of upgoing and downgoing waves between the air/ice and ice/sea surfaces.

 

Interpreting sea ice SAR data – What does a layered backscatter model tell us?

Jakob Grahn, PhD student, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Radar data acquired at multiple polarisations and frequencies contain much information about targets such as sea ice. But what can we actually say about the measured backscatter?

In this study, a semi-coherent backscatter model is used to interpret space-borne SAR data of sea ice collected over the Fram Strait in connection to the N-ICE campaign in 2015. The model is fully polarimetric, thus it simulates both backscatter coefficients as well as polarimetric phase shifts.