A coherent two-interface scattering model for Bohai Sea ice observed by C-band SAR

Peng ZHENG; Zhongbiao CHEN; Runxia SUN; Yijun HE

doi:10.1007/s00343-026-6067-7

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A coherent two-interface scattering model for Bohai Sea ice observed by C-band SAR

Updated：2026-09-17

- A coherent two-interface scattering model for Bohai Sea ice observed by C-band SAR
- Journal of Oceanology and Limnology Pages: 1-25(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
- Author bio：
  
  chenzhongbiao@nuist.edu.cn
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s00343-026-6067-7
  CLC：
- Received：09 February 2026，
  
  Online First：17 September 2026，
- Accepted：
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ZHENG Peng,CHEN Zhongbiao,SUN Runxia,et al.A coherent two-interface scattering model for Bohai Sea ice observed by C-band SAR[J].Journal of Oceanology and Limnology,
DOI：

ZHENG Peng,CHEN Zhongbiao,SUN Runxia,et al.A coherent two-interface scattering model for Bohai Sea ice observed by C-band SAR[J].Journal of Oceanology and Limnology, DOI：.

摘要

Abstract

The Bohai Sea

China’s only seasonally ice-covered sea

exhibits complex backscattering signatures in C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations

particularly in nearshore areas influenced by high concentrations of suspended sediments. Using Sentinel-1 C-band Vertical-Vertical (VV)-polarized data

this study investigates the regional-scale incidence-angle-dependent scattering behavior of seasonal sea ice in the nearshore Huanghe (Yellow) River estuary. A first-order Small Perturbation Method (SPM) is employed to construct an electromagnetic scattering model for finite thickness layered sea ice

representing the ice cover as a three-layer air-ice-seawater medium with two rough scattering interfaces. The model explicitly accounts for scattering contributions from the air-ice interface

the ice-se

awater interface attenuated by propagation through the ice layer

and their coherent coupling effects

while the dielectric properties of sediment-laden sea ice are described using the De Loor model combined with effective medium theory. Incidence-angle-conditioned regional mean normalized radar cross section (NRCS) is derived through statistical averaging to characterize stable scattering behavior under realistic SAR observation conditions. Comparison between modeled and Sentinel-1 observed NRCS demonstrates that the proposed coherent layered scattering framework successfully reproduces the dominant incidence-angle-dependent behavior of VV-polarized C-band NRCS at the statistical level

with validation results mainly concentrated around a global correlation coefficient (

) of 0.71 and the root mean square error (RMSE) of approximately 0.9 dB. Tile-wise analysis reveals multiple angular-response types

including increasing

decreasing

convex

concave

and weakly varying responses

indicating that the observed NRCS cannot be reduced to a single monotonic angular trend. Model comparison further shows that explicitly separating the upper and lower interface contributions and including their coherent cross term improves the reproduction of the observed VV NRCS-incidence angle response. Forward sensitivity experiments show that sediment volume fraction mainly changes the NRCS amplitude while largely preserving the angular-response type. These results provide a physically consistent basis for interpreting regional-scale SAR backscattering behavior of sediment-influenced seasonal sea ice in complex nearshore environments.

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Keywords

references

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