Feasibility of using C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar datasets for long term (1991-present) sea ice monitoring: towards multi-decadal analysis of sea ice type changes in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean

We present a feasibility assessment of using several publicly available C-band wide-swath SAR datasets to derive sea ice type maps in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean from 1991 to present. This region is characterized by highly variable and dynamic sea ice conditions, and temporally consistent, large-scale monitoring of sea ice parameters is only possible through satellite remote sensing. We use data from C-band sensors including Sentinel-1, RADARSAT-2, Envisat ASAR and ERS-1/2, which have similar central frequencies and spatial resolution, to cover the study period. We evaluate comparative image classification performances and classification consistency using these datasets with common training datasets in geographically and temporally overlapping scenes and a sea ice classifier correcting for per-class incidence angle (IA) effects. Through this evaluation, we demonstrate the differences in these datasets affecting sea ice classification and the feasibility of using legacy sensors including Envisat ASAR and ERS-1/2 to extend the time series of sea ice type maps back to 1991 in our study area. This study provides theoretical support for the establishment of a multi-decadal SAR-based sea ice type product, which will contribute to the assessment of seasonal and inter-annual sea ice variations, especially the variability in new ice formation, which strongly influences physical and biogeochemical processes across the ocean-ice-atmosphere interface. This study is part of the collaborative project INTERAAC (air-snow-ice-ocean INTERactions transforming Atlantic Arctic Climate) between Norway and China, which aims at generating a reconciled multi-mission Climate Data Record (CDR) for Atlantic Arctic sea ice.