RIASSUNTO
ABSTRACT:
To monitor the sea ice dynamic changes using the SAR imagery in polar region, we proposed an oriented-object regional segmentation and dynamic objects identification method. This method included the sea ice and open water discrimination, sea ice types classification, sea ice objects identification and representation and dynamic changes detection. The RADARSAT-2 SAR imagery with standard ScanSAR mode covered Arctic regions acquired on August 13, 15 and 17, 2010 were used in the experiment, and the results showed the validity and feasibility of the present method.
INTRODUCTION
Through new remote sensing technologies, SAR has become the most important method of observing sea ice on the regional scale independent of cloud covers and nightlight conditions (Sandven et al. 2006; Piotrovskaya 2007; Barale and Gade 2008), especially in the polar regions with few ground stations (Pettersson et al. 1999; Johannessen et al. 2008). In the last decade, several counties in the Northern Hemisphere, such as United States, Canada and Russia, have used the high-resolution SAR from ERS-1/2, RADARSAT-1 and ENVISAT imagery as the main data source for sea ice monitoring for ship traffic navigation, fisheries and offshore operations (Scheuchl et al. 2004; Jackson and Apel 2004). Also several processing platforms based on the high-resolution SAR imagery, such as Radarsat Geophysical Processing System (RGPS) (Kwok 1998), MAp-Guided Sea Ice Classification System (MAGSIC) (Clausi et al. 2010), Advanced Reasoning using Knowledge for Typing of Sea Ice (ARKTOS) (Soh and Tsatsoulis 2002; Soh et al. 2004), have been established for scientific researches and operational applications, i.e. sea ice segmentation and classification, sea ice extents changes and thickness distribution, sea ice identification and motion to improve understanding of sea ice dynamic changes and its impacts on global changes (Jackson and Apel 2004; Stroeve et al. 2007; Holland et al. 2006).