EGU25-10034, updated on 31 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10034
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Polarimetric GNSS-Reflectometry data over sea ice during the MOSAiC expedition
Baojian Liu1, Ruibo Lei2, Wei Wan3, Junming Xia4, Maximilian Semmling5, Jie Zhang3, Yue Xu3, Yueqiang Sun4, Gunnar Spreen6, and Gunnar Spreen
Baojian Liu et al.
  • 1School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
  • 2Key Laboratory for Polar Science of the MNR, Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai, China
  • 3School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
  • 4The National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 5German Aerospace Center DLR, Institute for Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Neustrelitz, Germany
  • 6University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has long been explored for retrieving sea ice properties, but in-situ validation in the central Arctic during the freezing season is rare, limiting its application. The primary objective of this study is to advance the current understanding of multi-polarization GNSS-R remote sensing for sea ice. This paper presents observations from the full-polarization GNSS-R(FpolGNSSR) prototype  during the MOSAiC expedition. FpolGNSSR, with four polarization channels and high antenna gain (11.3 dB), aims to assess the impact of sea-ice thickness and permittivity on GNSS-R data, with observations from October 2019 to January 2020, the onset period of ice growth. A four-layer model simulates reflectivity, and the sensitivity of multi-polarization GNSS-R to sea ice is qualitatively analyzed. Subsequently, a simplified model reveals a linear relationship between reflectivity and ice thickness, with regression showing a correlation of 0.74 (P<0.01). The optimal RMSE of sea ice thickness retrieval is 0.13 m for first-year ice in freezing season (0.3–1.0 m thick). 

How to cite: Liu, B., Lei, R., Wan, W., Xia, J., Semmling, M., Zhang, J., Xu, Y., Sun, Y., Spreen, G., and Spreen, G.: Polarimetric GNSS-Reflectometry data over sea ice during the MOSAiC expedition, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10034, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10034, 2025.