Assessment of Cryospheric Parameters Over the Himalaya and Antarctic Regions using SCATSAT-1 Enhanced Resolution Data

Abstract

Antarctica is the focus of scientific studies considering the largest reservoir of terrestrial water in the form of ice and doubling of ice area during winter due to sea-ice growth. The third pole -Himalaya is equally important due to the large extent of snow and ice cover outside the polar regions, which is a major source of water for the Asian countries. At present, the Ku-band scatterometer observing global cryosphere is the SCATSAT-1 launched by India. This article describes the study carried out on different cryospheric parameters using high-resolution (~2.2 km) scatterometer data in the Antarctica and Himalaya. Impact of seasonal variations in snow/ice and ice calving on the backscatter over Antarctica is discussed in detail. A procedure developed for the estimation of sea-ice extent, which yielded overall accuracy of 89%, has been presented and successfully applied for daily monitoring of the Antarctic ice extent for 2017.