Abstract
Radar altimetry provides an important geophysical parameter, backscatter coefficient (σ0), which is useful in studying target surface characteristics. Ku-band (Oceansat-2 scatterometer- OSCAT) and Ka-band (SARAL-AltiKa altimeter) data are concurrently used to characterize polar surface features over the Antarctic region. Maximum-likelihood classification has been employed to classify combined data set (AltiKa and OSCAT) for discrimination among sea ice, open water, and ice sheet (interior and exterior). The sea ice region obtained using the current approach has been compared with sea ice boundary derived from passive microwave data.
Acknowledgements
The three anonymous reviewers whose critical comments and suggestions helped improved the quality of this paper are acknowledged. Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES, France) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are acknowledged for the SARAL/AltiKa data sets, and Ocean & Sea Ice-Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF, EUMETSAT) for the sea ice concentration data set used in the study.