University of Waterloo
Assessing the Potential of the SWOT Mission for the Retrieval of Freshwater Lake Ice and Overlying Snow Properties — Freshwater ice thickness and snow water equivalent provide a proxy for monitoring climate, however both are difficult to derive from conventional satellite observations. This project utilizes data from the Surface Water Ocean Topography Mission during the Fast Sampling (daily) and Science Data Collection (11 day repeat) phases to retrieve ice thickness and SWE for Kluane (Yukon) and Teshekpuk (Alaska) Lakes. Two sensors are utilized: 1) Ku-band altimeter, which has been shown to retrieve ice thickness from waveforms, and 2) Ka-band interferometric syntheric aperture radar that has demonstrated capability for snow retrievals, but has not been tested for snow on ice.