Classification of Sea Ice Types in ENVISAT Synthetic Aperture Radar Images

In this paper, sea ice in the Central Arctic has been classified in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from ENVISAT using a neural network (NN)-based algorithm and a Bayesian algorithm. Since different sea ice types can have similar backscattering coefficients at C-band HH polarization, it is necessary to use textural features in addition to the backscattering coefficients. The analysis revealed that the most informative texture features for the classification of multiyear ice (MYI), deformed first-year ice (FYI) (DFYI), and level FYI (LFYI) and open water/nilas are correlation, inertia, cluster prominence, energy, homogeneity, and entropy, as well as third and fourth central statistical moments of image brightness. The optimal topology of the NN, trained for ENVISAT wide-swath SAR sea ice classification, consists of nine neurons in input layer, six neurons in hidden layer, and three neurons in output layer. The classification results for a series of 20 SAR images, acquired in the central part of the Arctic Ocean during winter months, were compared to expert analysis of the images and ice charts. The results of the NN classification show that the average correspondences with the expert analysis amount to 85%, 83%, and 80% for LFYI, DFYI, and MYI, respectively. The Bayesian pixel-based method can provide a higher resolution in the classified image and, therefore, better capability to identify leads compared to the NN method. Both methods may be effectively used in the Central Arctic where MYI is predominant.