The study on an Antarctic sea ice identification algorithm of the HY-2A microwave scatterometer data

Abstract

An Antarctic sea ice identification algorithm on the HY-2A scatterometer (HSCAT) employs backscattering coefficient (σ 0) and active polarization ratio (APR) for a preliminary sea ice identification. Then standard deviation (STD) filtering and space filtering are carried out. Finally, it is used to identify sea ice. A process uses a σ 0, STD threshold and an APR as sea ice indicators. The sea ice identification results are verified using the sea ice distribution data of the ASMR2 released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center as a reference. The results show very good consistence of sea ice development trends, seasonal changes, area distribution, and sea ice edge distribution of the sea ice identification results obtained by this algorithm relative to the ASMR2 sea ice results. The accuracy of a sea ice coverage is 90.8% versus the ASMR2 sea ice results. This indicates that this algorithm is reliable.