Radar Reflectivity Measurements Of Ice at Ka Band

Naval and helicopter radars may face operational scenarios where radar returns from the surface of ice become valuable. Partly due to that, we have measured the radar reflectivity of sea ice at Ka band for very small grazing angles. For an angle of 0.7°, an effective reflectivity of −26 dBsm ± 2 dB was observed with horizontal polarization. The value obtained closely matches that presented in the open literature for refrozen snow. However, the assumption of a homogeneous ice surface is very seldom valid, even if we take into account the relatively large illuminated areas at operational distances. The observed effective reflectivity thus most often is dominated by pack ice and related formations.