Ice and SWOT (iSWOT): unlocking impacts and opportunities

Principle Investigator: Mohammed Dabboor (Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Government of Canada)

Co-Investigator(s): Pascal Matte, Daniel Peters, José Lagunas-Morales, John MacKay, Saeid Homayouni, Christine Gommenginger, Adrien Martin, Mathieu Plante

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The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is set to revolutionize our understanding of Earth's water bodies, providing high-resolution observations of surface water elevations, enabling us to monitor changes in our planet's water resources. The SWOT orbit coverage spans from 78°S to 78°N, which offers partial coverage of the Arctic Ocean and complete coverage of the sea ice in the Southern Ocean. However, in high-latitude regions, the presence of either sea or lake ice can significantly impact the accuracy and reliability of SWOT mission observations. This project aims to comprehensively assess the influence of ice on SWOT data in critical regions with a significant ice presence. SWOT’s successful estimation of ice freeboard heights in high altitude regions depends on several factors, such as the assessment of the penetration depth of the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) signal into the snow-covered ice. Furthermore, the capabilities of the SWOT mission for sea ice characterization in polar oceans using Ka-band SAR imagery will be explored. This project proposal perfectly aligns with an Arctic campaign currently in preparation by Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to study sea ice and icebergs. The campaign, named ICENAV 2025, is being planned for 2025 in collaboration between DRDC, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), and the Canadian Ice Service (CIS) for navigation safety in sea ice. The campaign is expected to have two legs, one in winter and another one in summer to examine multiple ice conditions and types. The experimental sites of the planned campaign are located within the SWOT coverage. For lake ice, we select Lake Athabasca, which was one of the Canadian experimental test sites during the SWOT calibration and validation phase. Lake Athabasca has extensive instrumentation which allows for collecting lake ice information, including ice thickness, snow cover, snow thickness and snow wetness. Also, the freeze up and break up of ice in the lake is also observed. The anticipated results of our project include the validation of the SWOT ice elevation measurements with and without snow cover conditions over both lake and sea ice. Furthermore, we expect to report on the SWOT product’s accuracy in dry and wet ice conditions, given the two legs of the planned expedition. Therefore, our project is expected to define and analyze the factors that impact the SWOT products due to the presence of ice. In addition, insights on lake and sea ice characterization and potential of ice thickness products using SWOT Ka-Band SAR imagery are expected to be demonstrated.