Statistical comparison of SAR backscatter from icebergs embedded in sea ice and in open water using RADARSAT-2 images of in Newfoundland waters and the Davis Strait

Himi, Umma Hafsa (2019) Statistical comparison of SAR backscatter from icebergs embedded in sea ice and in open water using RADARSAT-2 images of in Newfoundland waters and the Davis Strait. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Icebergs are considered a threat to marine operations. Satellite monitoring of icebergs is one option to aid in the development of iceberg hazard maps. Satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an obvious choice because of its relative weather independence, day and night operation. Nonetheless, the detection of icebergs in SAR can be a challenge, particularly with high iceberg areal density, heterogeneous background clutter and the presence of sea ice. This thesis investigates and compares polarimetric signatures of icebergs embedded in sea ice and icebergs in open water. In this thesis, RADARSAT-2 images have been used for analysis, which was acquired over locations near the coastline (approximately 3-35 km) of the islands of Newfoundland and Greenland. All icebergs considered here are in the lower incident angle range (below 30 degrees) of the SAR acquisition geometry. For analysis, polarimetry parameters such as co- (HH) and cross- (HV) polarization and several decomposition techniques, specifically Pauli, Freeman-Durden, Yamaguchi, Cloud-Pottier and van Zyl classification, have been used to determine the polarimetric signatures of icebergs and sea ice. Statistical hypothesis tests were used to determine the differences among backscatters from different icebergs. Statistical results tend to show a dominant surface scattering mechanism for icebergs. Moreover, icebergs in open water produce larger volume scatter than icebergs in sea ice, while icebergs in sea ice produce larger surface scatter than icebergs in open water. In addition, there appear to be minor observable differences between icebergs in Greenland and icebergs in Newfoundland.

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