Thin Sea Ice Thickness Prediction Using Multivariate Radar-Physical Features and Machine Learning Algorithms

Climate change in the Arctic is causing significant declines in sea ice extent and thickness. This study investigated lab-grownsea ice thickness using Linear Regression and three Machine Learning algorithms: Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Fully Connected Neural Network. To comprehensively track thin sea ice growth using various parameters, a combination of up to 13 radar and physical parameters including surface-based C-band NRCS values in VV, HH, and HV polarizations, air temperature, surface temperature, Cumulative Freezing Degree Moments, humidity, wind speed, surface cover salinity, ice surface salinity, bulk ice salinity, frost flower height and snow depth were input to the four multivariate models in two time series datasets. The results showed that Random Forest was the superior model, with =0.01 cm, for thicknesses of 1–8 cm and 27–47 cm. Using the Permutation Importance method, the role of the employed parameters in the thickness prediction process were ranked and showed that the key parameters were Cumulative Freezing Degree Moment, salinity parameters (surface cover, ice surface, and bulk ice salinities), and C-band co-polarized radar backscattering. The results of this study enhance thickness prediction capacity and accuracy, while providing insights for future research and real-time sea ice thickness prediction in Arctic regions.