Surface observation of thwaites ice tongue in west antarctica using dual-polarized TerraSAR-X data

Abstract

Various polarimetric analyses were carried out in order to verify the break-up of the Thwaites Ice Tongue. The hypothesis was that the observed crack on the ice tongue must be filled with sea ice if completely broken. Although the recently published paper asserted that the ice tongue had been completely broken, we found that it is too early to come into the conclusion. The depolarization ratio is mainly used to compare and distinguish between certain features of the ice surface and entropy, as well as mean alpha angle, is also computed as complementary information.