Ku‐ and Ka‐Band Polarimetric Radar Waveforms and Snow Depth Estimation Over Multi‐Year Antarctic Sea Ice in the Weddell Sea

Willatt, Rosemary ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2512-562X; Mallett, Robbie; Stroeve, Julienne; Wilkinson, Jeremy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7166-3042; Nandan, Vishnu; Newman, Thomas. 2025 Ku‐ and Ka‐Band Polarimetric Radar Waveforms and Snow Depth Estimation Over Multi‐Year Antarctic Sea Ice in the Weddell Sea. Geophysical Research Letters, 52 (13), e2024GL112870. 10, pp. 10.1029/2024GL112870

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Official URL: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.102...

Abstract/Summary

Antarctic sea ice has seen recent rapid declines in extent, but it remains unclear whether this isaccompanied by thinning. Due to the relative abundance and complexity of overlying snow on sea ice, radaraltimetry methods routinely deployed for sea ice thickness estimation in the Arctic are difficult to apply inAntarctica. We present nadir‐looking radar waveforms from the first deployment of the KuKa surface‐basedradar on Antarctic sea ice, specifically multi‐year sea ice in the Weddell Sea marginal ice zone with a thick snowcover. Coincident snow pits revealed thick layers of snow which were exposed to the summer melt season andsuperimposed ice. Our instrument detects only very small amount of co‐polarized radar backscatter from the seaice surface, suggesting that conventional satellite altimeters may not always range to this interface. However,polarimetric snow depth determination performs well, with r2 of 0.76 between measured and KuKa‐estimatedsnow depths.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2024GL112870
ISSN:	0094-8276
Additional Keywords:	Antarctic, sea ice, snow, radar, remote sensing, altimetry
Date made live:	08 Jul 2025 08:43 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539801

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1029/2024GL112870

ISSN:

0094-8276

Additional Keywords:

Antarctic, sea ice, snow, radar, remote sensing, altimetry

Date made live:

08 Jul 2025 08:43 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539801