On Suitability of ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 Dual-Polarized SAR Data for Arctic Sea Ice Parameter Estimation

In this article, ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 dual-polarized [horizontal-transmit–horizontal-receive and horizontal-transmit–vertical-receive (HH/HV)] ScanSAR mode L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery over an Arctic study area was evaluated for their suitability for operational sea ice (SI) monitoring. The L-band SAR data are studied for the estimation of different SI parameters: SI concentration, SI thickness, SI type, and SI drift. Also, some comparisons with nearly coincident C-band data over the same study area have been made. The results indicate that the L-band SAR data from ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 are very useful for estimating the studied SI parameters and equally good or better than using the conventional operational dual-polarized C-band SAR satellite data.