Yackel, JohnMahmud, Mallik Sezan2021-09-102021-09-102021-09Mahmud, M. S. (2021). Monitoring Arctic sea ice from spaceborne L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113840As the Arctic is vast and largely inaccessible, concerns point to the increasing role of innovative earth observation technology for monitoring sea ice environments and conditions. The enhanced capabilities of L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) make it a critical technology for developing effective sea ice monitoring strategies. The use of L-band SAR imagery is limited in sea ice research; therefore, it presents a unique opportunity to investigate its advantages and challenges relative to other frequencies. The overarching goal of this research is to characterize the relationship between sea ice geophysical and thermodynamic properties and L-band SAR signatures over the seasonal cycle. To achieve this, L-band SAR imagery was investigated for i) incidence angle induced backscatter variability, ii) snow-covered sea ice thermodynamic monitoring, and iii) newly formed sea ice identification and classification. At first, this doctoral work investigated incidence angle dependency for L-band SAR backscatter and developed an image processing workflow to normalize the incidence angle induced backscatter variability for operation sea ice monitoring. Next, time-series L-band SAR imagery was used to evaluate the first-ever full annual-cycle evolution of L-band backscatter over first-year and multi-year sea ice. Finally, a novel dual-frequency approach was developed to identify newly formed sea ice in the Arctic and demonstrated that a combination of C- and L-band could substantially increase sea ice classification accuracy. This doctoral research provided baseline information on the utility of L-band SAR imagery and demonstrated its advantages over other frequencies for sea ice measurement and monitoring, which will be invaluable to existing, pending and upcoming L-band SAR missions.engUniversity 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.Sea iceArcticSARPhysical Geographydoctoral thesis10.11575/PRISM/39177