Automatic Extraction and Tracking the Arctic drift ice based on FY-3/MERSI data

Sea ice motion adversely plays an important role in the developing the Arctic Passage which is essential for commercial global shipping. This paper developed an automatic extraction and tracking method for Arctic drift ice based on the FY-3/MERSI data that obtained by Medium Resolution Spectral Imager onboard FengYun-3 satellite . Firstly, on the basis of the gray distribution feature of drift ice, the blocky drift ices were extracted by combining the K-means and SVM algorithms in several sub-region . Secondly, the matching of same drift ice in pair images was implemented according to the geometric feature and the velocity of the matched ice was calculated. A series image of the Fram Strait was used to compute the drift ice motion. The resulting motion vectors were found to match well with the polar daily grid sea ice motion vectors provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, thus verifying the validity of the proposed method of tracking drift ice motion . The prime effect of this method is effectively supplying the actual motion vector of drift ice to improve the distribution and details of grid sea ice motion vectors. So this method is capable of providing comprehensive and detailed information support of the sea ice motion for the Arctic Passage development.