Sea ice remote sensing using AMSR‐E 89‐GHz channels

Recent progress in sea ice concentration remote sensing by satellite microwave radiometers has been stimulated by two developments: First, the new sensor Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer‐EOS (AMSR‐E) offers spatial resolutions of approximately 6 × 4 km at 89 GHz, nearly 3 times the resolution of the standard sensor SSM/I at 85 GHz (15 × 13 km). Second, a new algorithm enables estimation of sea ice concentration from the channels near 90 GHz, despite the enhanced atmospheric influence in these channels. This allows full exploitation of their horizontal resolution, which is up to 4 times finer than that of the channels near 19 and 37 GHz, the frequencies used by the most widespread algorithms for sea ice…