Sea Ice Identification and Derivation of Its Velocity Field by X-Band Doppler Radar

Abstract

Abstract In this study a 3D scanning X-band Doppler radar (XDR) was deployed near the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, Hokkaido, Japan, in November 2005 to simultaneously observe sea ice and snow clouds. Doppler radars are commonly used to detect wind fields within precipitating clouds. However, thus far, there have been no reports of observing sea ice with Doppler radar. Making use of the radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and spectrum width, sea ice floes were identified under various weather conditions. Also presented is a new method that combines Doppler radar data and sea ice velocity—extracted using the cross-correlation method—to derive a high-spatial-resolution horizontal distribution of the velocity of sea ice floes. These methods will contribute to short-term forecasting of sea ice conditions and navigation through ice-covered seas and the development and verification of high-resolution dynamic sea ice models.