The RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System

The RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System (RGPS) is a data processing system for the analysis of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data of sea ice acquired by the Canadian RADARSAT satellite (Raney et al. 1991). RADARSAT was launched in November of 1995 into a 24-day repeat cycle, an orbit configuration which provides near repeat coverage of the high latitudes at 3- and 7-day intervals. The SAR sensor has a number of imaging modes, one of which illuminates a wide swath (460 km) designed for large scale mapping of the Earth’s surface. The science plan of the Alaska SAR Facility calls for weekly coverage of the Arctic Ocean. With this mode, the coverage of the Arctic Ocean every 7 days (Fig. 1) with 100 m pixels produces approximately 1 GB of image data daily. In an effort to make this large volume of SAR data more useful to the scien-

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