Ground-based scatterometer observations of snow-covered freshwater lake ice using UW-SCAT (9.6/17.2 GHz)
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Gunn, Grant; Duguay, Claude; Macelloni, Giovanni; Brogioni, Marco
- Source
- 2014 IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2014 IEEE International. :3666-3669 Jul, 2014
- Subject
- Geoscience
Ice
Snow
Lakes
Backscatter
Radar measurements
Microwave FET integrated circuits
Microwave integrated circuits
X-band
Ku-band
lake ice
active microwave
snow
- Language
- ISSN
- 2153-6996
2153-7003
Winter season backscatter (σ°) evolution of snow covered lake ice was observed by ground-based University of Waterloo X-(9.6 GHz) and Ku-band (17.2 GHz) scatterometers (UW-SCAT) during the winter of 2010–11. The UW-SCAT post-processing procedure allowed for the observation of σ° at the surface (snow/ice interface, ice types) and the ice volume. Observations indicated that: (1) σ° associated with the development of tubular bubbles within the ice volume causes double-bounce of the signal and high returns at X- and Ku-bands; (2) ice types at the surface (grey ice) composed of high density spherical micro-bubbles result in σ° increases at both X- and Ku-bands; and (3) the removal of snow overlying ice results in a drop in Ku-band σ° up to 5.5 dB, exhibiting sensitivity to snow water equivalent.