A single SAR image-based approach to analyse the dynamics of Terra Nova Bay polynya

In recent decades, Antarctica has been undergoing a wide range of fast environmental changes. The sea ice covering the Southern Ocean not only reacts rapidly to these changes, but also influences and alters the physical properties of the atmospheric boundary layer and the underlying ocean on various scales. In that regard, polynyas, i.e. regions of open water and thin ice within the closed pack ice, play a key role as being regions of enhanced atmosphere-ice-ocean interactions and extensive new ice formation during winter. The experimental analysis is based on a series of Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) acquisitions collected in single-polarization mode, during both the expansion and contraction stages of the Terra Nova Bay polynya. These data are complemented by auxiliary observations from passive microwave instruments. In this study, preliminary results show that the ability of a single SAR scene to identify the open polynya growing and closing phases. Further analysis will be provided by the time of the conference.