C52A-08
Integrated Airborne and In-Situ Measurements Over Land-Fast Ice Near Barrow, AK.

Friday, 18 December 2015: 12:05
3007 (Moscone West)
Joan M Gardner1, John M Brozena1, Jacqueline Richter-Menge2, Andrei Abelev3, Robert Liang3, David Ball4, Keran J Claffey2, David A Hebert5 and Kate Jones6, (1)US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, (2)USACE-ERDC CRREL, Hanover, NH, United States, (3)Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC, United States, (4)ITT Exelis Inc. Herndon, Herndon, VA, United States, (5)John C. Stennis Space Center, Stennis Space Center, MS, United States, (6)Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program, Washington, DC, United States
Abstract:
The Naval Research Laboratory has collected two field seasons of integrated airborne and in-situ measurements over multiple sites of floating, but land-fast ice north of Barrow, AK. During the first season in March of 2014 the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory led the on-ice group including NRL personnel and Naval Academy midshipmen. The second season (March 2015) included only NRL scientists and midshipmen. The in-situ data provided ground-truth for airborne measurements from a scanning LiDAR (Riegl Q 560i), digital photogrammetry (Applanix DSS-439), a low-frequency SAR (P-band in 2014 and P and L bands in 2015) and a snow/Ku radar procured from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets of the University of Kansas. The CReSIS radar was updated in 2015 to integrate the snow and Ku radars into a single continuous chirp, thus improving resolution. The objective of the survey was to aid our understanding of the use of the airborne data to calibrate/validate Cryosat-2 data.

Sampling size or “footprint” plays a critical role in the attempt to compare in-situ measurements with airborne (or satellite) measurements. Thus the in-situ data were arranged to minimize aliasing. Ground measurements were collected along transects a sites generally consisting of a 2 km long profile of Magnaprobe and EM31 measurements with periodic boreholes. A 60 m x 400 m swath of Magnaprobe measurements was centered on this profile.

Airborne data were collected on multiple overflights of the transect areas. The LiDAR measured total freeboard (ice + snow) referenced to leads in the ice, and produced swaths 200-300 m wide. The SAR imaged the ice beneath the snow and the snow/Ku radar measured snow thickness. The freeboard measurements and snow thickness are used to estimate ice thickness via isostasy and density estimates.

Comparisons and processing methodology will be shown. The results of this ground-truth experiment will inform our analysis of grids of airborne data collected over areas of sea-ice illuminated by Cryosat-2.

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