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Bayesian Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach to Segment Arctic Sea Ice from SMOS
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  • Christoph Herbert,
  • Adriano Camps,
  • Florian Wellmann,
  • Mercedes Vall-Llossera
Christoph Herbert
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Adriano Camps
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
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Florian Wellmann
RWTH Aachen University
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Mercedes Vall-Llossera
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
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Abstract

Microwave radiometry at L-band is sensitive to sea ice thickness (SIT) up to ∼ 60 cm. Current methods to infer SIT depend on ice-physical properties and data provided by the ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. However, retrieval accuracy is limited due to seasonally and regionally variable surface conditions during the formation and melting of sea ice. In this work, Arctic sea ice is segmented using a Bayesian unsupervised learning algorithm aiming to recognize spatial patterns by harnessing multi-incidence angle brightness temperature observations. The approach considers both statistical characteristics and spatial correlations of the observations. The temporal stability and separability of classes are analyzed to distinguish ambiguous from well-determined regions. Model uncertainty is quantified from class membership probabilities using information entropy. The presented approach opens up a new scope to improve current SIT retrieval algorithms, and can be particularly beneficial to investigate merged satellite products.