Insights on Snow/Ice Radar Backscatter using the KuKa Radar during MOSAiC

To improve our understanding of how snow properties influence sea ice thickness retrievals from satellite radar altimeter missions, as well as investigating the potential for combining dual frequencies to simultaneously map snow depth and sea ice thickness, a new, surface-based, fully-polarimetric Ku- and Ka band radar (KuKa radar) was built and deployed during the 2019-2020 year-long MOSAiC International Arctic drift expedition. This instrument operated in two modes, as a scatterometer (scanning mode) and as an altimeter (stare mode), providing the first in situ Ku- and Ka-band dual frequency radar observations from autumn freeze-up through mid-winter to melt onset, and covering newly formed ice in leads, first-year and second-year ice floes. Data gathered in the altimeter mode allow us to investigate the potential for estimating snow depth as the difference between dominant radar scattering horizons in the Ka- and Ku-band data whereas data in the scatterometer mode allow for the assessment of changes in the polarimetric radar backscatter as snow properties vary under varying atmospheric conditions. This presentation provides initial results from using the KuKa radar in both the scatterometer and altimeter mode and provides insights as to how radar backscatter at these two frequencies varies with snow and atmospheric properties.