2023
DOI: 10.1109/tgrs.2023.3318263
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Airborne Investigation of Quasi-Specular Ku-Band Radar Scattering for Satellite Altimetry Over Snow-Covered Arctic Sea Ice

Claude De Rijke-Thomas,
Jack C. Landy,
Robbie Mallett
et al.

Abstract: Surface-based Ku-band radar altimetry investigations indicate the radar signal is typically backscattered from well above the snow-sea ice interface. However, this would induce a bias in satellite altimeter sea ice thickness retrievals not reflected by buoy validation. Our study presents a mechanism to potentially explain this paradox: probabilistic quasi-specular radar scattering from the snow-ice interface. We introduce the theory for this mechanism before identifying it in airborne Ku-band radar observation… Show more

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Cited by 5 publications
(2 citation statements)
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“…Furthermore, De Rijke‐Thomas et al. (2023) showed that the radar‐scale roughness and slope distributions of the air‐snow and snow‐ice interfaces strongly impact Ku‐band radar scattering from a nadir‐looking airborne sensor, suggesting that smoother snow‐ice interfaces characteristic of FYI can be more likely to accurately detect the snow‐ice interface elevation. An interesting future research question would therefore be to test the derived snow depth distributions for C2I samples acquired after new snowfall versus in stable conditions.…”
Section: Results Discussion and Conclusionmentioning
confidence: 99%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…Furthermore, De Rijke‐Thomas et al. (2023) showed that the radar‐scale roughness and slope distributions of the air‐snow and snow‐ice interfaces strongly impact Ku‐band radar scattering from a nadir‐looking airborne sensor, suggesting that smoother snow‐ice interfaces characteristic of FYI can be more likely to accurately detect the snow‐ice interface elevation. An interesting future research question would therefore be to test the derived snow depth distributions for C2I samples acquired after new snowfall versus in stable conditions.…”
Section: Results Discussion and Conclusionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The height of maximum scattering intensity at Ka‐band will be further investigated once CRISTAL (and CRISTALAir, the airborne simulator of CRISTAL) is launched. Here, it will be crucial to have coincident airborne observations at various frequencies (laser, Ka‐band, and Ku‐band) to investigate how changes in snow and ice conditions impact the retrieved freeboards (as discussed in De Rijke‐Thomas et al., 2023). The airborne observations of the C2I Antarctic under‐flight will provide some of the first means to fully investigate this along the orbits where dual‐frequency altimetry has been used to estimate snow depth, as the Cryo2IceEx/NERC DEFIANT Antarctic under‐flight flew with both Ka‐band, Ku‐band, laser and a snow radar along a C2I orbit.…”
Section: Results Discussion and Conclusionmentioning
confidence: 99%