TRACKING OF ANTARCTIC TABULAR ICEBERGS USING PASSIVE MICROWAVE RADIOMETRY

Passive microwave images of Antarctica from the Special Sensor Microwa ve Imager (SSM/I) are used to track two giant tabular icebergs that or iginated from the Larsen ice shelf in 1986. Since microwave radiation is relatively insensitive to weather and unaffected by lighting condit ions, the SSM/I instrument provides all-weather, year-round viewing. T he icebergs are visible almost every day giving an ideal temporal reso lution for tracking their motion. One of the icebergs was tracked unti l October 1988, six months after its last position noted in the Navy/N OAA Joint Ice Centre ice charts. The tracks of both icebergs reveal mo tion in sympathy with observed oceanographic currents and eddies.