Abstract—High-resolution ice concentration maps are of great
interest for ship navigation and ice hazard forecasting. In this
case study, a convolutional neural network (CNN) has been
used to estimate ice concentration using synthetic aperture radar
(SAR) scenes captured during the melt season. These dual-pol
RADARSAT-2 satellite images are used as input, and the ice
concentration is the direct output from the CNN. With no feature
extraction or segmentation postprocessing, the absolute mean errors
of the generated ice concentration maps are less than 10%
on average when compared with manual interpretation of the ice
state by ice experts. The CNN is demonstrated to produce ice
concentration maps withmore detail than produced operationally.
Reasonable ice concentration estimations are made inmelt regions
and in regions of low ice concentration.