Co-investigating the utility of Radarsat Constellation Mission polarizations for SmartICE Inuit community ice travel safety maps

Inuit communities are reliant on sea ice travel to hunt and fish to get nutritious food and maintain their culture. Search and Rescue incidents are on the rise with changing sea ice conditions due to climate change. Information to support Inuit travel needs at community scales are currently limited in Inuit Nunangat (Simonee et al., 2021). To meet these needs SmartICE (www.smartice.org) has co-developed the Sikumik Qaujimajjuti program to build local Inuit expertise in satellite interpretation and digital mapping skills.
Due to polar darkness and cloud cover in Canada’s North, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite imagery is widely used to monitor ice. Discriminating ice from open water in SAR is a known challenge. However, Canada’s Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) provides advanced imaging techniques, known as polarimetry, that shows promise for improving the interpretation of ice and open water in SAR imagery. This research will co-investigate with Inuit these advanced techniques for sea ice mapping at community scales, and co-develop culturally contextual training and workflows for the utilization of this imagery for Inuit SmartICE mappers.

Faculty Supervisor:

John Yackel;Lynn Moorman

Student:

Partner:

SmartICE Inc

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Calgary

Program: