Investigation of sea ice and lake ice using Ground-Based SAR tomography

International audienceIn this paper we present experimental results relative to the vertical structure of snow covered lake ice and sea ice, sensed with X-band radar system operated in a tomographic configuration. The available data are from a Ground-Based SAR campaign carried out over Prestvannet frozen lake and Kattfjord, both in Tromso, Norway. Direct imaging of the vertical structures of the snow and ice layers is achieved by focusing the signal from a 2D synthetic array in the 3D space. By making use of a priori information about the depth of snow and ice, the refractive index of snow and sea ice/lake ice is estimated from a single polarization tomographic measurement, and the results are in good agreement with previous experimental results. We have also shown that air bubbles in low salinity ice are the main contributors for the backscatter signal from ice