Yackel, John JamesNandan, VishnuMaknun, Syeda Shahida2024-06-172024-06-172024-06-13Maknun, S. S. (2024). Detecting melt pond onset on landfast Arctic sea ice using a dual C-band satellite approach (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.https://hdl.handle.net/1880/118967https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/46563The presence of melt ponds on the surface of Arctic sea ice affects its albedo, thermal properties, and overall melting rate, and thus, the detection of melt pond onset is of significant importance for understanding the Arctic's changing climate. This study investigates the utility of a novel method for detecting the onset of melt ponds on sea ice using a satellite-based, dual-sensor C-band approach, whereby Sentinel-1 provides horizontally polarized (HH) data and Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) provides vertically polarized (VV) data. The co-polarized ratio (VV/HH) is used to detect the presence of melt ponds on landfast sea ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in 2017 and 2018. ERA-5 air temperature, and wind speed reanalysis datasets are used to establish the VV/HH threshold for pond onset detection which have been further validated by Landsat-8 reflectance. Co-polarized ratio threshold of 3 standard deviations from late winter season (April) acquisitions is used for assessing pond onset detection associated with the air temperature and wind speed data along with visual observation from Sentinel-1 and cloud-free Sentinel-2 imagery. In 2017, the pond onset detection rate percentages were 70.59% for FYI and 92.3% for MYI. Results suggest that this method, because of its dual-platform application, has potential for providing large-area coverage estimation of sea ice melt pond onset timing using different earth observation satellites.enUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Canadian Arctic ArchipelagoSea iceMelt pondsPond onsetCo-polarized ratioSentinel-1ASCATDual-sensor C-bandSnowRemote SensingPhysical Geographymaster thesis