Software for Processing SAR Images of the Polar Oceans

The RADARSAT/ERS-1,2 Geophysical Processor System (RGPS) is an automated system of hardware and software that processes synthetic-aperture-radar (SAR) images of ice and open water in polar oceans to generate higher-level geophysical-data products. Information in such products includes the age and thickness of ice and the onset of melting or freezing. They are all computed by algorithms contained in the RGPS software. In addition to the SAR image data themselves, meteorological fields are used in the analysis of the SAR imagery; therefore, interfaces with external meteorological sources have been established to capture meteorological data. The RGPS is intended to be installed as a subsystem of the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF), though testing of the RGPS had not yet been completed at the time of reporting the information for this article. In operation as subsystem of the ASF, the RGPS would be able to place requests for acquisition of raw SAR data and for preprocessing of those data by other hardware and software, would ingest the preprocessed data, would generate its standard data products routinely, and would deliver these products to an archive for long-term storage and distribution. In addition to the aforementioned geophysical data products generated from SAR imagery, the RGPS would also produce daily surface-pressure, wind, and temperature data on a gridded field.