Articles | Volume 15, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1811-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1811-2021
Research article
 | 
13 Apr 2021
Research article |  | 13 Apr 2021

Simulated Ka- and Ku-band radar altimeter height and freeboard estimation on snow-covered Arctic sea ice

Rasmus T. Tonboe, Vishnu Nandan, John Yackel, Stefan Kern, Leif Toudal Pedersen, and Julienne Stroeve

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Cited articles

Aldenhoff, W., Heuzé, C., and Eriksson, L.: Sensitivity of radar altimeter waveform to changes in sea ice type at resolution of synthetic aperture radar, Remote Sens.-Basel, 11, 2602, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11222602, 2019. 
Alexandrov, V., Sandven, S., Wahlin, J., and Johannessen, O. M.: The relation between sea ice thickness and freeboard in the Arctic, The Cryosphere, 4, 373–380, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-4-373-2010, 2010. 
Armitage, T. and Ridout, A.: Arctic sea ice freeboard from AltiKa and comparison with CryoSat-2 and Operation IceBridge, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 6724–6731, 2015. 
Barber, D. G. and Nghiem, S. V.: The role of snow on the thermal dependence of microwave backscatter over sea ice, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans, 104, 25789–25803, 1999. 
Barber, D. G., Fung, A. K., Grenfell, T. C., Nghiem, S. V., Onstott, R. G., Lytle, V. I., Perovich, D. K., and Gow, A. J.: The role of snow on microwave emission and scattering over first-year sea ice, IEEE T. Geosci. Remote, 36, 1750–1763, https://doi.org/10.1109/36.718643, 1998. 
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Short summary
A relationship between the Ku-band radar scattering horizon and snow depth is found using a radar scattering model. This relationship has implications for (1) the use of snow climatology in the conversion of satellite radar freeboard into sea ice thickness and (2) the impact of variability in measured snow depth on the derived ice thickness. For both 1 and 2, the impact of using a snow climatology versus the actual snow depth is relatively small.