UNIVERSAL MULTIFRACTAL SCALING OF SYNTHETIC-APERTURE RADAR IMAGES OF SEA-ICE

Multifrequency, multipolarization imaging radar scattering coefficient data sets, acquired by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) over sea-ice, w ere studied in order to reveal their scale-invariant properties; Two d istinct scenes were acquired at C-band (5.6 cm) and L-band (25 cm) wav elengths for three different Linear polarizations (HH, VV, and HV), Th ese sea-ice radar scattering coefficient fields were investigated by a pplying both Fourier and multifractal analysis techniques, The (multi) scaling of the data is clearly exhibited in both scenes for all three polarizations at L-band and for the HV polarization at C-band, The-fi elds presenting this symmetry were found to be well described by unive rsal multifractals. The corresponding parameters alpha, C-1, and H wer e determined for all these fields and were found to vary little with o nly the parameter H (characterizing the degree of nonconservation) dis playing some systematic sensitivity to polarization, The values found for the universal multifractal parameters are alpha approximate to 1.8 5 +/- 0.05, C-1 approximate to 0.0086 +/- 0.0041, and H approximate to -0.15 +/- 0.05.