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Critically Needed: Continued 3-day RADARSAT coverage of the Western Arctic Ocean during IPY. Ron Kwok Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology. 3-day RADARSAT mapping of Arctic Ocean.
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Critically Needed: Continued 3-day RADARSAT coverage of the Western Arctic Ocean during IPY Ron Kwok Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology
3-day RADARSAT mapping of Arctic Ocean • RADARSAT has been providing 3-day mapping of the Arctic Ocean for derivation of small-scale ice kinematics since Nov 1996 • These observations: • Provide unprecedented spatial sampling of Arctic sea ice drift and deformation • Support IPY field programs • Are crucial for process studies, model validation, model development, and climate analysis • Together with Envisat, provide basin scale coverage of the Arctic Ocean • These routine 3-day observations (through the Alaska Satellite Facility) will not be available to the science community after March 2008 (end of CSA/NASA MOU) • These observations are critical for supporting IPY science and operations in 2008 and 2009 • The gap in IPY coverage may be to big to be filled by other SARs at this time
Arctic Ocean Coverage 24-day RADARSAT orbit cycle 3-day coverage • RADARSAT ScanSAR wide B (460 km swath) • 3-day repeat coverage within ASF reception mask • 6-day repeat coverage within Tromso reception mask • Acquistion since Nov 96 • Gap in Data set: Antarctic Mapping Campaign: Aug-Oct,97 • ~650 mins of SAR data/cycle • More than 500 images
102 km RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System (RGPS) Mapping of time-varying deformation in the ice cover Initial Grid resolution: 10 by 10 km Drift tracks ~10 km separation (initially) sampled 1-3 days for two-thirds of the Arctic Ocean for an entire winter 101 km 103 km
Model Comparisons using RADARSAT ice drift from RGPS APR NOV