Winter Sea-Ice Lead Detection in Arctic Using FY-3D MERSI-II Data

Abstract

Lead is an important feature of the Arctic ice cover, with possible contents of thin ice (TI) or open water (OW). In this letter, we present an algorithm for lead detection based on brightness temperature observations from a single thermal infrared (TIR) channel of Moderate Resolution Spectral Imager Type II (MERSI-II) onboard the Chinese FY-3D satellite. Lead contents are classified into OW and TI with support information from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Results are evaluated based on the visual interpretation of MERSI-II TIR and Sentinel-2 near infrared (NIR) data. The accuracy is found to be 85.6% for lead detection and 67% and 52% for TI and OW within the lead, respectively.