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Snow and Ice Thickness Retrievals Using GNSS-R: Preliminary Results of the MOSAiC Experiment

Munoz-Martin, JF; Perez, A; Camps, A; Ribó, S; Cardellach, E; Stroeve, J; Nandan, V; ... Pastena, M; + view all (2020) Snow and Ice Thickness Retrievals Using GNSS-R: Preliminary Results of the MOSAiC Experiment. Remote Sensing , 12 (24) , Article 4038. 10.3390/rs12244038. Green open access

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Abstract

The FSSCat mission was the 2017 ESA Sentinel Small Satellite (S⌃3) Challenge winner and the Copernicus Masters competition overall winner. It was successfully launched on 3 September 2020 onboard the VEGA SSMS PoC (VV16). FSSCat aims to provide coarse and downscaled soil moisture data and over polar regions, sea ice cover, and coarse resolution ice thickness using a combined L-band microwave radiometer and GNSS-Reflectometry payload. As part of the calibration and validation activities of FSSCat, a GNSS-R instrument was deployed as part of the MOSAiC polar expedition. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate expedition was an international one-year-long field experiment led by the Alfred Wegener Institute to study the climate system and the impact of climate change in the Arctic Ocean. This paper presents the first results of the PYCARO-2 instrument, focused on the GNSS-R techniques used to measure snow and ice thickness of an ice floe. The Interference Pattern produced by the combination of the GNSS direct and reflected signals over the sea-ice has been modeled using a four-layer model. The different thicknesses of the substrate layers (i.e., snow and ice) are linked to the position of the fringes of the interference pattern. Data collected by MOSAiC GNSS-R instrument between December 2019 and January 2020 for different GNSS constellations and frequencies are presented and analyzed, showing that under general conditions, sea ice and snow thickness can be retrieved using multiangular and multifrequency data.

Type: Article
Title: Snow and Ice Thickness Retrievals Using GNSS-R: Preliminary Results of the MOSAiC Experiment
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3390/rs12244038
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs12244038
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: GNSS-R; sea-ice; arctic; snow
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10117653
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