SEA ICE CHARACTERISTICS IN THE SOUTHERN REGION OF OKHOTSK SEA OBSERVED BY X- AND L- BAND SAR

The main objective of this research is into the possible use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to monitor sea ice especially in the southern region of the Sea of Okhotsk. There are a lot of SAR satellites operating in orbit, and most of satellites can observe ground targets with various observation parameters. We would like to find out the suitable observation parameters for monitoring sea ice in relatively thin sea ice area. In situ data collections on Lake Saroma were carried out in mid February 2010, which were simultaneously with TerraSAR-X and PALSAR data acquisitions. Comprehensive analysis of satellite data, ground truth data, and backscattering model shows that the contribution of snow layer on the ice to the backscattering coefficient cannot be ignored in X-band. Also, we found that X-band data was superior to detect thin sea ice than L-band data by comparing the sea ice backscattering characteristics in open sea area.