Title:
Simulation and Measurement Techniques for Microwave Remote Sensing of Sea Ice
Date:
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 @ 9:30am
Location:
E1-270 EITC, University of Manitoba Fort Garry Campus
Speaker:
Dustin Isleifson
University of Manitoba
Abstract:
This talk presents new research into the study of simulation and measurement techniques for microwave remote sensing of sea ice. We have embarked on a major study of the microwave propagation and scattering properties of sea ice in an attempt to link the physics of the sea ice medium to experimentally obtained concomitant scatterometer measurements.
During our fieldwork, we conducted a study of the polarimetric backscattering response of sea ice, focusing on newly-formed sea ice under a large assortment of surface coverage. Polarimetric backscattering results and physical data for 40 stations during the fall freeze-up of 2003, 2006, and 2007 are presented. Analysis of the co-polarization correlation coefficient showed its sensitivity to sea ice thickness and surface coverage and resulted in a statistically significant separation of ice thickness into two regimes: ice less than 6 cm thick and ice greater than 8 cm thick. A case study quantified the backscatter of snow-infiltrated frost flowers on new sea ice, showing that the presence of the frost flowers enhanced the backscatter by more than 6 dB. A separate case study quantified the temporal-spatial variation of a frost-flower-covered sea ice floe.
In our simulation work, an efficient method for simulating the scattering from objects in multi-layered media was incorporated into a scattered-field formulation of the FVTD method. The technique uses a total-field 1D-FDTD solution to the plane-wave propagation as a source. The method is validated through comparisons with other numerical techniques with examples of scattering from canonically-shaped objects.
Methods for homogenization of inhomogeneous media were developed and validated using well-known dielectric mixture models. A Monte Carlo method for simulating scattering from statistically rough surfaces was developed and was validated through favorable comparison with the SPM method for rough surface scattering.
Finally, we present a new Monte Carlo method for simulating sea ice remote sensing that utilizes the framework of the FVTD method for scattering simulations. The modeling process is driven by actual physical measurements of sea ice, wherein dielectric and physics-based modeling techniques are employed. This Monte Carlo method is validated through a series of case studies which show agreement between experimental scatterometer measurements and simulations.
Speaker Bio:
Dustin Isleifson completed his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba in 2005 and immediately joined the M.Sc. program. In 2007, he was advanced to the Ph.D. program which he plans to complete in 2011.
Cost:
This will be a free event.
Contact:
For questions or more information: Vladimir Okhmatovski 480-1432
