Superposition of Sea Ice Classification Based on Synthetic Aperture Radar Images Considering Underlying Drift

Using sea ice information generated from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) products can increase the safety and efficiency of ship operations in ice-infested waters. For the purpose of operational sea ice classification, the results need to be highly reliable. The combination of multiple SAR acquisitions can be used to estimate the reliability of sea ice classification and to overcome existing limitations. In this paper, we present a new approach for comparing sea ice classification results from pairs of independent TerraSAR-X acquisitions and additionally overlay it with information on sea ice movement. For this purpose, we combine our processors for estimating sea ice drift and classification. The sea ice drift field is used to compensate the ice movement between two SAR acquisitions and differentiate areas of homogeneous and inhomogeneous ice zones. The processing chain is developed for operational usage in near real-time.