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E-SAR at Svalbard

Svalbard . View over the Adventfjord (left Longyerbyen can be seen) . E-SAR at Svalbard . Radar image of sea ice

In the frame of the Svalbard Experiment (SVALEX 2005) three main topics are of main relevance:

• The polar boundary layer
• The vertical aerosol distribution and
• Oriented ice volumes

SVALEX 2006 has been conducted together with the Alfred-Wegner Institute (AWI) from Potsdam and Bremerhaven and the Microwaves and Radar Institute of the German Aerospace Center.

In April 2005 several measurement fights over sea ice and land ice have been conducted from Longyerbyen, Svalbard with the AWI aircraft POLAR2 and the DLR aircraft Do228. The objective was to deliver answers of the interconnection between Atmosphere – Ice-Ocean in order to answer question to the impact of climate change of troposphere aerosols and characterisation of orientation in ice volumes.

The campaign has been conducted during April 2005 (05.04.2005 – 23.04.2005). For this, different instruments have been used, which were installed at the two aircrafts. The flights have been conducted together over the same test area. It is expected to increase the understanding of ice procedure and structure using different instruments for their analysis.

Scientific Questions:

Polar Boundary Layer

• Is it possible from the radar images to derive information’s over the ice topography and to extrapolate this information to atmospheric turbulences over the sea ice in order to have an indication of occurring fluxes?
• Is it possible from a high resolution radar image to derive sea ice topography?
• Which is the impact of low spatial resolution satellite images to high resolution airborne data?

Vertical Aerosol Distribution

• High resolution vertical profiles of aerosol concentration at Svalbard
• Detaillierte Beschreibung des troposphärischen Aerosols bis in 3000 m Höhe, einschließlich des Phasenzustandes (fest / flüssig)
• Detailed description of troposphere aerosol until 3000 m height, included the phase condition (solid/liquid)
• Estimation of the representatively of measurements on one point (Koldewey station)

Oriented Volume

• What is the penetration depth of different frequencies?
• Is it possible to detect vertical/horizontal ice structure?
• Is it possible to estimate the penetration bias with polarimetric SAR interferometry and correct this bias in order to derive the surface topography?
• Would it be possible to detect ice layers on land ice with tomographic SAR?