Identifying Ice Floes and Computing Ice Floe Distributions in SAR Images

Sea ice that grows in the open seas takes on characteristic forms and shapes that are different from the largely smooth sea ice that grows in calm inlets, for example. Forcing from wind and waves fractures the thickening ice into pieces or floes, which then collide with each other. Over a winter season, the resulting sea ice matrix consists of fairly rounded floes with deformed surfaces composed of ridges and hummocks, separated by open water areas or leads. The new ice that forms in leads cements the floes together into an aggregate floe, which moves as a larger rigid piece composed of many smaller floes. In the summer, aggregated floes disintegrate as the thinner ice “cement” preferentially melts, making the isolated floes easily identifiable.

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