Sea Ice Movements from Synthetic Aperture Radar

Abstract

The spatial structure of the sea ice velocity field determines ridging, open water production and ice stress. The velocity has been measured roughly every 2 km along an 865 km track from SEASAT synthetic aperture radar. The movement shows individual pieces as large as 100 km. The spatial autocorrelation function of velocity has been estimated from these data and FGGE and AIDJEX buoy data, and has a length scale of roughly 1000 km. A model of the movement of a set of pieces shows the large uncertainty in opening and ridging estimated from velocities measured at only three points. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA109002

Entities

People

  • Alan S. Thorndike
  • David A. Rothrock

Organizations

  • University of Washington

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arctic Ocean
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Beaufort Sea
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Data Processing
  • Data Sets
  • Doppler Effect
  • Engineering
  • Frequency
  • Geometry
  • Measurement
  • Oceans
  • Photographs
  • Ridges
  • Satellite Imaging
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology
  • Polar and Arctic Studies
  • Radar Systems Engineering.