Arctic lakes thickness measurement in the Lena River delta based on the Sentinel-1 observations

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the possibilities of ice thickness remote sensing on freshwater lakes based on Sentinel-1 observations. Fr. was selected as a test site. Kurungnakh Island, located in the Lena River delta, was selected as a test site, where 10 lakes with floating and grounded ice were selected. For the test lakes, the time series of backscatting coefficients measured by Sentinel-1 at horizontal-horizontal polarization (EW mode) and at an angle of 18-20 from September 2015 to June 2017 were analyzed. The average lakes ice thickness was estimated based on the Lebedev’s model and air temperature according to the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF ERA5). It is shown that, the dependence between backscattering coefficient and ice thickness (120-140 cm) can be described a linear function (with a standard deviation of 13.5-25.3 cm and a determination coefficient of 0.70-0.79). The preliminary studies shows that the Sentinel-1 radar data is promising for remote sensing of ice thickness on freshwater arctic lakes.