Microwave Dielectric, Structural, and Salinity Properties of Simulated Sea Ice

Laboratory measurements of radar backscatter from bare and snow-covered saline ice sheets

“…The permittivity values chosen for C and K" bands are 3·5-jO·22 and 3·45-jO·2, respectively. These are reasonable values for ice of the salinity measured at CRREL (Arcone et al 1986). These parameter values are used for computing both co-polarized and cross-polarized scattering at both frequency bands.…”

“…Saline ice sheets grown at the CRREL facility possess physical properties, such as salinity and crystalline structure, which closely simulate thin Arctic sea ice (Arcone et al 1986, Gow 1986, Swift et al 1992.…”

A laboratory study of the effect of frost flowers on C band radar backscatter from sea ice

“…In the laboratory, Martin et al [1995,1996] show that frost flowers consist of ice crystals with characteristic heights of 10-30 mm, which grow on top of a patchy and highly saline lto 4-mm-thick slush layer. They find that flowers grow for the following reasons: within the ice, the thermomolecular pressure gradient transports brine to the surface [Dash et al, 1995], where it evaporates into the cold unstable convective boundary layer. The combination of evaporation and sublimation leaves a dense brine layer at the surface and forms a region of supersaturated vapor immediately above the ice.…”

Electrical anisotropy in sea ice and a dual-polarization radar system to mitigate the effects of preferential attenuation in imaging sea ice

“…These formulas require that the long axes of the ellipsoidal pockets are small relative to the wavelength of the signal in the sea ice and that υ b bb 1. These conditions are likely satisfied in cold sea ice (Arcone et al, 1986a(Arcone et al, , 1986bJones et al, 2010). With these assumptions we can calculate the complexvalued permittivities for the two-component system as follows (Morey et al, 1984):…”

“…1) (Jones et al, 2010;Kovacs and Morey, 1986;Morey et al, 1984). Nevertheless, the volume fraction, size, shape, and connectivity of the brine inclusions vary over several orders of magnitude depending on environmental factors (Arcone et al, 1986a;Buchanan et al, 2011;Jones et al, 2010). The concentration of the brine within the inclusions depends largely on the rate of ice growth for early-or mid-season ice.…”