1. Ice type and area analysis

Seasonal and interannual changes of new ice/first year ice/multi year ice will be focussed by using the ice classification and ice age data at UAF. For the thin ice, algorithm by our own, NASA team and University of Washington will be used and combined with the results of SAR and AVHRR.

2. Ice motion analysis

Sea ice growth/decay occurs due to in situ change and ice transport, however, ice motion data was limited. UAF established the ice motion data set in the Arctic, by using the SAR data, therefore all weather and high spatial resolution data is available. Ice tracking by the microwave radiometer data, which has lower spatial resolution but all weather capability, will be combined for multi-scale analysis of ice motion. This analysis covers ice change mechanism due to dynamic process, then two causes of ice change; thermal and dynamic, can be distinguished.

3. Associated atmospheric condition

Statistical analysis of large scale ice feature can be compared with the hemispheric atmospheric circulation, but studies of ice deformation and growth/decay process need synoptic analysis for the specific cases. Remote sensing is the important technique for observation of those processes. Changing process of ice area will be focussed. For the snow cover, temperature changes, some procedure of remote sensing (TOVS, SSM/I snow algorithm, SSM/I snow temperature algorithm) , which are independent procedure of the objective weather analysis and the direct measure of the surface and atmosphere by remote sensing, will be used for comparison and also used as an additional data.