Perspectives of Sentinel-1 for Sea-Ice Applications
Pedersen, Leif Toudal1; Dierking, Wolfgang2; Sandven, Stein3; Saldo, Roberto4; Power, Des5
1Danish Meteorological Institute, DENMARK; 2Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, GERMANY; 3Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, NORWAY; 4DTU-Space, DENMARK; 5C-Core, CANADA

Satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) observations have become a major source of operational as well as climatological information about the Earths changing sea ice cover.
This paper will briefly review the main prospects for sea ice research and monitoring with the Sentinel-1 series of satellites. The new satellites provide both a continuation of existing C-band SAR observation and some new opportunities. We will discuss the use of Sentinel-1 data for a number of sea ice applications.
Sentinel-1 will feature a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with capabilities as described in previous papers in this session. The main ones related to sea-ice and iceberg observations are

  • Extended wide swath mode that allows frequent coverage of large areas. In particular with 2 satellites in orbit
  • Improved spatial resolution relative to ENVISAT
  • Dual polarization modes (HH+HV or VV+VH)
  • Near real time distribution of data
  • Noise equivalent sigma zero (NESZ)
    The importance of the above parameters in cryospheric applications such as operational sea-ice charting, automatic classification of sea-ice in SAR images, SAR signatures of sea-ice, sea-ice drift and deformation and iceberg monitoring will be reviewed.